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TALES OE THE ARGONAUTS,-^: 


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OTHER SKETCHES. 



BRET HARTE. 

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BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
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[All Rights Reserved .] 


The Riverside Press , Cambridge , itfass., Z7. S. ^4. 
Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 


I 


CONTENTS. 


The Rose of Tuolumne 

A Passage in the Life of Mr. John Oak- 

hurst 

/Wan Lee, the Pagan 

How Old Man Plunkett went Home . 

l / The Fool of Five Forks 

Baby Sylvester 

An Episode of Fiddletown . 

A Jersey Centenarian 


41 

79 

105 

134 

173 

199 

274 







THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


CHAPTER I. 

FT was nearly two o’clock in the moaning. 

The lights were out in Robinson s Hall, 
where there had been dancing and revelry ; and 
the moon, riding high, painted the black win- 
dows with silver. The cavalcade, that an hour 
ago had shocked the sedate pines with song and 
laughter, were all dispersed. One enamoured 
swain had ridden east, another west, another 
north, another south ; and the object of their 
adoration, left within her bower at Chemisal 
Ridge, was calmly going to bed. 

I regret that I am not able to indicate the 
exact stage of that process. Two chairs were 
already filled with delicate inwrappings and 
white confusion; and the young lady herself, 
half-hidden in the silky threads of her yellow 
hair, had at one time borne a faint resemblance 
to a partly-husked ear of Indian corn. But she 
was now clothed in that one long, formless gar- 
ment that makes all women equal; and the 
round shoulders and neat waist, that an houi 

1 


2 


THE EOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


ago had been so fatal to the peace of mind of 
Four Forks, had utterly disappeared. The face 
above it was very pretty : the foot below, albeit 
shapely, was not small. “ The flowers, as a 
general thing, don’t raise their heads much to 
look after me,” she had said with superb frank- 
ness to one of her lovers. 

The expression of the “Rose” to-night was 
contentedly placid. She walked slowly to the 
window, and, making the smallest possible peep- 
hole through the curtain, looked out. The 
motionless figure of a horseman still lingered on 
the road, with an excess of devotion that only a 
coquette, or a woman very much in love, could 
tolerate. The “Rose,” at that moment, was 
neither, and, after a reasonable pause, turned 
away, saying quite audibly that it was “ too 
ridiculous for any thing.” As she came back to 
her dressing-table, it was noticeable that she 
walked steadily and erect, without that slight 
affectation of lameness common to people with 
whom bare feet are only an episode. Indeed, it 
was only four years ago, that without shoes or 
stockings, a long-limbed, colty girl, in a waist- 
less calico gown, she had leaped from the tail- 
board of her father’s emigrant-wagon when it 
first drew up at Chemisal Ridge. Certain wild 
habits of the “ Rose ” had outlived transplant- 
ing and cultivation. 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


3 


A knock at the door surprised her. In 
another moment she had leaped into bed, and 
with darkly-frowning eyes, from its secure 
recesses demanded “ Who’s there ? ” 

An apologetic murmur on the other side of 
the door was the response. 

“ Why, father ! — is that you ? ” 

There were further murmurs, affirmative, 
deprecatory, and persistent. 

“Wait,” said the “Rose.” She got up, un- 
locked the door, leaped nimbly into bed again, 
and said, “ Come.” 

The door opened timidly. The broad, stoop- 
ing shoulders, and grizzled head, of a man past 
the middle age, appeared: after a moment’s 
hesitation, a pair of large, diffident feet, shod 
with canvas slippers, concluded to follow. When 
the apparition was complete, it closed the door 
softly, and stood there, — a very shy ghost in- 
deed, — with apparently more than the usual 
spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation. 
The “ Rose ” resented this impatiently, though, 
I fear, not altogether intelligibly. 

“ Do, father, I declare ! ” 

“ You was abed, Jinny,” said Mr. McClosky 
slowly, glancing, with a singular mixture of 
masculine awe and paternal pride, upon the two 
chairs and their contents, — “ you was abed and 
andressed.” 


4 


THE EOSE OF THOLTTMNE. 


“ I was.” 

“ Surely,” said Mr. McClosky, seating himself 
on the extreme edge of the bed, and jainfully 
tucking his feet away under it, — “surely.” 
After a pause, he rubbed a short, thick, stumpy 
beard, that bore a general resemblance to a 
badly-worn blacking-brush, with the palm of 
his hand, and went on, “ You had a good time, 
Jinny ? ” 

“ Yes, father.” 

“ They was all there ? ” 

“ Yes, Ranee and York and Ryder and 
Jack.” 

“ And Jack ! ” Mr. McClosky endeavored to 
throw an expression of arch inquiry into his 
small, tremulous eyes ; but meeting the un- 
abashed, widely-opened lid of his daughter, he 
winked rapidly, and blushed to the roots of his 
hair. 

“ Yes, Jack was there,” said Jenny, without 
change of color, or the least self-consciousness 
in her great gray eyes ; “ and he came home 
with me.” She paused a moment, locking her 
two hands under her head, and assuming a more 
comfortable position on the pillow. “ He asked 
me that same question again, father, and I said, 
‘ Yes.’ It’s to be — soon. We’re going to live 
at Four Forks, in his own house ; and next 
winter we’re going to Sacramento. I suppose 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


5 


it’s all right, father, eh ? ” She emphasized the 
question with a slight kick through the bed- 
ciothes, as the parental McClosky had fallen 
into an abstract revery. 

“ Yes, surely,” said Mr. McClosky, recovering 
himself with some confusion. After a pause, 
he looked down at the bed-clothes, and, patting 
them tenderly, continued, 44 You couldn’t have 
done better, Jinny. They isn’t a girl in Tuo- 
lumne ez could strike it ez rich as you hev — 
even if they got the chance.” He paused 
again, and then said, “ Jinny ? ” 

44 Yes, father.” 

“ You’se in bed, and ondressed?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You couldn’t,” said Mr. McClosky, glancing 
hopelessly at the two chairs, and slowly rubbing 
his chin, — 44 you couldn’t dress yourself again 
could yer ? ” 

44 Why, father!” 

44 Kinder get yourself into them things 
again?” he added hastily. 44 Not all of ’em, 
you know, but some of ’em. Not if I helped 
you’ — sorter stood by, and lent a hand now 
and then with a strap, or a buckle, or a necktie, 
or a shoestring ? ” he continued, still looking at 
the chairs, and evidently trying to boldly famil- 
iarize himself with their contents. 

44 Are you crazy, father ? ” demanded Jenny 


6 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


suddenly sitting up with a portentous switch 
of her yellow mane. Mr. McClosky rubbed 
one side of his beard, which already had the 
appearance of having been quite worn away by 
that process, and faintly dodged the question. 

“ Jinny,” he said, tenderly stroking the bed- 
clothes as he spoke, “ this yer’s what’s the 
matter. Thar is a stranger down stairs, — a 
stranger to you, lovey, but a man ez I’ve 
knowed a long time. He’s been here about an 
hour; and he’ll be here ontil fower o’clock, 
when the up-stage passes. Now I wants ye, 
Jinny dear, to get up and come down stairs, and 
kinder help me pass the time with him. It’s 
no use, Jinny,” he went on, gently raising his 
hand to deprecate any interruption, “it’s no 
use ! He won’t go to bed ; he won’t play 
keerds ; whiskey don’t take no effect on him. 
Ever since I knowed him, he was the most on- 
satisfactory critter to hev round ” — 

“What do you have him round for, then?” 
interrupted Miss Jinny sharply. 

Mr. McClosky’s eyes fell. “ Ef he hedn’t kem 
out of his way to-night to do me a good turn, I 
wouldn’t ask ye, Jinny. I wouldn’t, so help me ! 
But I thought, ez I couldn’t do any thing with 
bim, you might come down, and sorter fetch 
him, Jinny, as you did the others.” 

Miss Jenny shrugged her pretty shoulders. 


THE EOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


7 


44 Is he old, or young ? ” 

“ He’s young enough, Jinny ; but he knows a 
power of things.” 

44 What does he do ? ” 

44 Not much, I reckon. He’s got money in the 
mill at Four Forks. He travels round a good 
deal. I’ve heard, Jinny that he’s a poet — 
writes them rhymes, you know.” Mr. Mc- 
Closky here appealed submissively but directly 
to his daughter. He remembered that she had 
frequently been in receipt of printed elegaic 
couplets known as “mottoes,” containing enclos- 
ures equally saccharine. 

Miss Jenny slightly curled her pretty lip 
She had that fine contempt for the illusions of 
fancy which belongs to the perfectly healthy 
young animal. 

44 Not,” continued Mr. McClosky, rubbing his 
head reflectively, 44 not ez I’d advise ye, Jinny, 
to say any thing to him about poetry. It ain’t 
twenty minutes ago ez I did. I set the 
whiskey afore him in the parlor. I wound up 
the music-box, and set it goin’. Th n I sez to 
him, sociable-like and free, 4 Jest consider your- 
self in your own house, and repeat what you 
allow to be your finest production,’ and he 
raged. That man, Jinny, jest raged! Thar’s 
no end of the names he called me. You see 
Jinny,” continued Mr. McClosky apologetically, 
M he’s known me a long time.” 


8 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


But his daughter had already dismissed the 
question with her usual directness. 44 I’ll be 
down in a few moments, father,” she said after 
a pause, “ but don’t say any thing to him about 
it — don’t say I was abed.” 

Mr. McClosky’s face beamed. r4 You was 
allers a good girl, Jinny,” he said, dropping on 
one knee the better to imprint a respectful kiss 
on her forehead. But Jenny caught him by 
the wrists, and for a moment held him captive. 
“ Father,” said she, trying to fix his shy eyes 
with the clear, steady glance of her own, 44 all 
the girls that were there to-night had some one 
with them. Marne Robinson had her aunt ; 
Lucy Ranee had her mother ; Kate Pierson had 
her sister — all, except me, had some other 
woman. Father dear,” her lip trembled just a 
little, 44 1 wish mother hadn’t died when I was 
so small. I wish there was some other woman 
in the family besides me. I ain’t lonely with 
you, father dear ; but if there was only some 
one, you know, when the time comes for John 
and me ” — 

Her voice here suddenly gave out, but not 
her brave eyes, that were still fixed earnestly 
pon his face. Mr. McClosky, apparently 
tracing out a pattern on the bedquilt, essayed 
•words of comfort. 

44 Thar ain’t one of them gals ez you ve 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


9 


named, Jinny, ez could do what you’ve done 
with a whole Noah’s ark of relations at their 
backs ! Thar ain’t one ez wouldn’t sacrifice 
her nearest relation to make the strike that 
you hev. Ez to mothers, maybe, my dear 
you’re doin’ better without one.” He rose 
suddenly, and walked toward the door. When 
he reached it, he turned, and, in his old depre- 
cating manner, said, “ Don’t be long, Jinny,” 
smiled, and vanished from the head downward, 
his canvas slippers asserting themselves reso- 
lutely to the last. 

When Mr. McClosky reached his parlor 
again, his troublesome guest was not there. 
The decanter stood on the table untouched; 
three or four books lay upon the floor; a 
number of photographic views of the Sierras 
were scattered over the sofa ; two sofa-pillows, 
a newspaper, and a Mexican blanket, lay on the 
carpet, as if the late occupant of the room had 
tried to read in a recumbent position. A 
French window opening upon a veranda, which 
never before in the history of the house had 
been unfastened, now betrayed by its waving 
laee curtain the way that the fugitive had 
escaped. Mr. McClosky heaved a sigh of 
despair. He looked at the gorgeous carpet 
purchased in Sacramento at a fabulous price, at 
tiie Crimson satin and rosewood furniture un 


10 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


paralleled in the history of Tuolumne, at the 
massively-framed pictures on the walls, and 
looked beyond it, through the open window, to 
the reckless man, who, fleeing these sybaritic 
allurements, was smoking a cigar upon the 
moonlit road. This room, which had so often 
awed the youth of Tuolumne into filial respect, 
was evidently a failure. It remained to be seen 
if the “Rose” herself had lost her fragrance. 
“ I reckon Jinny will fetch him yet,” said Mr. 
McClosky with parental faith. 

He stepped from the window upon the 
veranda ; but he had scarcely done this, before 
his figure was detected by the stranger, who at 
once crossed the road. When within a few 
feet of McClosky, he stopped. “ You persistent 
old plantigrade ! ” he said in a low voice, audible 
only to the person addressed, and a face full of 
affected anxiety, “ why don’t you go to bed ? 
Didn’t I tell you to go and leave me here 
alone? In the name of all that’s idiotic and 
imbecile, why do you contiuue to shuffle about 
here? Or are you trying to drive me crazy 
with your presence, as you have with that 
wretched music-box that I’ve just dropped 
under yonder tree ? It’s an hour and a half yet 
before the stage passes : do you think, do you 
imagine for a single moment, that I can tolerate 
you until then, eh? Why don’t you speak? 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


11 


Are you asleep ? You don’t mean to say that 
you have the audacity to add somnambulism to 
your other weaknesses ? you’re not low enough 
to repeat yourself under any such weak pretext 
as that, eh ? ” 

A fit of nervous coughing ended this extraor- 
dinary exordium ; and half sitting, half leaning 
against the veranda, Mr. McClosky’s guest 
turned his face, and part of a slight elegant 
figure, toward his host. The lower portion of 
this upturned face wore an habitual expression 
of fastidious discontent, with an occasional line 
of physical suffering. But the brow above was 
frank and critical ; and a pair of dark, mirthful 
eyes, sat in playful judgment over the super- 
sensitive mouth and its suggestion. 

“ I allowed to go to bed, Ridgeway,” said Mr. 
McClosky meekly; “but my girl Jinny’s jist 
got back from a little tear up at Robinson’s, and 
ain’t inclined to turn in yet. You know what 
girls is. So I thought we three would jist have 
a social chat together to pass away the time.” 

“You mendacious old hypocrite! She got 
Lack an hour ago,” said Ridgeway, “as that sav- 
age-looking escort of hers, who has been haunt 
ing the house ever since, can testify. My belief 
is, that, like an enterprising idiot as you are, 
you’ve dragged that girl out of her bed, that we 
might mutually bore each other.” 


12 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


Mr. McClosky was too much stunned by this 
evidence of Ridgeway’s apparently superhuman 
penetration to reply. After enjoying his host’s 
confusion for a moment with his eyes, Ridge- 
way’s mouth asked grimly, — 

“ And who is this girl, anyway ? ” 

“ Nancy’s.” 

“ Your wife’s ? ” 

“ Yes. But look yar, Ridgeway,” said 
McClosky, laying one hand imploringly on 
Ridgeway’s sleeve, “ not a word about her to 
Jinny. She thinks her mother’s dead — died in 
Missouri. Eh ! ” 

Ridgeway nearly rolled from the veranda in 
an excess of rage. “ Good God ! Do you 
mean to say that you have been concealing 
from her a fact that any day, any moment, may 
come to her ears? That you’ve been letting 
her grow up in ignorance of something that by 
this time she might have outgrown and for- 
gotten? That you have been, like a besotted 
old ass, all these years slowly forging a thunder- 
bolt that any one may crush her with ? That ” 
— but here Ridgeway’s cough took possession 
of his voice, and even put a moisture into his 
dark eyes, as he looked at McClosky’s aimless 
hand feebly employed upon his beard. 

“ But,” said McClosky, “ look how she’s 
done ! She’s held her head as high as any of 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. ]8 

’em. She’s to be married in a month to the 
richest man in the county; and,” he added 
cunningly, “ Jack Ashe ain’t the kind o’ man to 
sit by and hear any thing said of his wife or 
her relations, you bet ! But hush — that’s her 
foot on the stairs. She’s cummin’.” 

She came. I don’t think the French window 
ever held a finer view than when she put aside 
the curtains, and stepped out. She had dressed 
herself simply and hurriedly, but with a 
woman’s knowledge of her best points ; so that 
you got the long curves of her shapely limbs, 
the shorter curves of her round waist and 
shoulders, the long sweep of her yellow braids, 
the light of her gray eyes, and even the deli- 
cate rose of her complexion, without knowing 
how it was delivered to you. 

The introduction by Mr. McClosky was brief. 
When Ridgeway had got over the fact that it 
was two o’clock in the morning, and that the 
cheek of this Tuolumne goddess nearest him 
was as dewy and fresh as an infant’s, that she 
looked like Marguerite, without, probably, ever 
having heard of Goethe’s heroine, he talked, I 
dare say, very sensibly. When Miss Jenny — 
who from her childhood had been brought up 
among the sons of Anak, and who was accus- 
tomed to have the supremacy of our noble sex 
presented to her as a physical fact — found her 


14 


THE EOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


self in the presence of a new and strange 
power in the slight and elegant figure beside 
her, she was at first frightened and cold. But 
finding that this power, against which the 
weapons of her own physical charms were of 
no avail, was a kindly one, albeit general, she 
fell to worshipping it, after the fashion of 
woman, and casting before it the fetishes and 
other idols of her youth. She even confessed 
to it. So that, in half an hour, Ridgeway was 
in possession of all the facts connected with 
her life, and a great many, I fear, of her fancies 
— except one. When Mr. McClosky found the 
young people thus amicably disposed, he calmly 
went to sleep. 

It was a pleasant time to each. To Miss 
Jenny it had the charm of novelty; and she 
abandoned herself to it, for that reason, much 
more freely and innocently than her companion, 
who knew something more of the inevitable logic 
of the position. I do not think, however, he had 
any intention of love-making. I do not think 
he was at all conscious of being in the attitude. 
I am quite positive he would have shrunk from 
the suggestion of disloyalty to the one woman 
whom he admitted to himself he loved. But, 
like most poets, he was much more true to an 
idea than a fact, and having a very lofty concep- 
tion of womanhood, with a very sanguine nature, 


THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


15 


he saw in each new face the possibilities of a 
realization of his ideal. It was, perhaps, an 
unfortunate thing for the women, particularly as 
he brought to each trial a surprising freshness, 
which was very deceptive, and quite distinct 
from the blasS familiarity of the man of gallantry. 
It was this perennial virginity of the affections 
that most endeared him to the best women, 
who were prone to exercise toward him a chiv- 
alrous protection, — as of one likely to go astray, 
unless looked after, — and indulged in the dan- 
gerous combination of sentiment with the 
highest maternal instincts. It was this quality 
which caused Jenny to recognize in him a 
certain boyishness that required her womanly 
care, and even induced her to offer to accom- 
pany him to the cross-roads when the time for 
his departure arrived. With her superior 
knowledge of woodcraft and the locality, she 
would have kept him from being lost. I wot 
not but that she would have protected him from 
bears or wolves, but chiefly, I think, from the 
feline fascinations of Marne Robinson and Lucy 
Ranee, who might be lying in wait for this 
tender young poet. Nor did she cease to be 
thankful that Providence had, so to speak, 
delivered him as a trust into her hands. 

It was a lovely night. The moon swung low, 
and languished softly on the snowy ridge 


16 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


beyond. There were quaint odors in the still 
air ; and a strange incense from the woods per- 
fumed their young blood, and seemed to swoon 
in their pulses. Small wonder that they lin- 
gered on the white road, that their feet climbed, 
unwillingly the little hill where they were to 
part, and that, when they at last reached ?t, 
even the saying grace of speech seemed to have 
forsaken them. 

For there they stood alone.. There was no 
sound nor motion in earth, or woods, or heaven. 
They might have been the one man and woman 
for whom this goodly earth that lay at their 
feet, rimmed with the deepest azure, was 
created. And, seeing this, they turned toward 
each other with a sudden instinct, and their 
hands met, and then their lips in one long kiss. 

And then out of the mysterious distance 
came the sound of voices, and the sharp clatter 
of hoofs and wheels, and Jenny slid away — a 
white moonbeam — from the hill. For a mo- 
ment she glimmered through the trees, and 
then, reaching the house, passed her sleeping 
father on the veranda, and, darting into her 
bedroom, locked the door, threw open the 
window, and, falling on her knees beside it, 
leaned her hot cheeks upon her hands, and 
listened. In a few moments she was rewarded 
by the sharp clatter of hoofs on the stony road 


THE BOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


17 


but it was only a horseman, whose dark figure 
was swiftly lost in the shadows of the lowei 
road. At another time she might have recog- 
nized the man ; but her eyes and ears were now 
all intent on something else. It came presently 
with dancing lights, a musical rattle of harness, 
a cadence of hoof-beats, that set her heart to 
beating in unison — and was gone. A sudden 
sense of loneliness came over her; and tears 
gathered in her sweet eyes. 

She arose, and looked around her. There was 
the little bed, the dressing-table, the roses that 
she had worn last night, still fresh and bloom- 
ing in the little vase. Every thing was there ; 
but every thing looked strange. The roses should 
have been withered, for the party seemed so 
long ago. She could hardly remember when she 
had worn this dress that lay upon the chair. 
So she came back to the window, and sank down 
beside it, with her cheek a trifle paler, leaning 
on her hand, and her long braids reaching to 
the floor. The stars paled slowly, like her 
cheek; yet with eyes that saw not, she still 
looked from her window for the coming dawn. 

It came, with violet deepening into purple, 
with purple flushing into rose, with rose shining 
into silver, and glowing into gold. The strag- 
gling line of black picket-fence below, that had 
faded away with the stars, came ba'k with the 


18 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


sun. What was that object moving by the 
fence? Jenny raised her head, and looked 
intently. It was a man endeavoring to climb 
the pickets, and falling backward with each 
attempt. Suddenly she started to her feet, as 
if the rosy flushes of the dawn had crimsoned 
her from forehead to shoulders ; then she stood, 
white as the wall, with her hands clasped upon 
her bosom; then, with a single bound, she 
reached the door, and, with flying braids and 
fluttering skirt, sprang down the stairs, and out 
to the garden walk. When within a few feet 
of the fence, she uttered a cry, the first she had 
given, — the cry of a mother over her stricken 

babe, of a tigress over her mangled cub ; and in 
another moment she had leaped the fence, and 
knelt beside Ridgeway, with his fainting head 
upon her breast. 

“ My boy, my poor, poor boy ! who has done 
this?” 

Who, indeed ? His clothes were covered 
with dust ; his waistcoat was torn open ; and 
his handkerchief, wet with the blood it could 
not stanch, fell from a cruel stab beneath his 
shoulder. 

“ Ridgeway, my poor boy ! tell me what has 
happened.” 

Ridgeway slowly opened his heavy blu& 
veined lids, and gazed upon her. Presently a 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


19 


gleam of mischief came into his dark eyes, a 
smile stole over his lips as he whispered 
slowly, — 

“ It — was — your kiss — did it, Jenny dear 
I had forgotten — how high-priced the article 
was here. Never mind, Jenny!” — he feebly 
raised her hand to his white lips, — “ it was — 
worth it,” and fainted away. 

Jenny started to her feet, and looked wildly 
around her. Then, with a sudden resolution, 
she stooped over the insensible man, and with 
one strong effort lifted him in her arms as if 
he had been a child. When her father, a 
moment later, rubbed his eyes, and awoke from 
his sleep upon the veranda, it was to see a 
goddess, erect and triumphant, striding toward 
the house with the helpless body of a man 
lying across that breast where man had never 
lain before, — a goddess, at whose imperious 
mandate he arose, and cast open the doors be 
fore her. And then, when she had laid her 
unconscious burden on the sofa, the goddess 
fled; and a woman, helpless and trembling, 
stood before him, — a woman that cried out that 
she had “ killed him,” that she was “ wicked, 
wicked ! ” and that, even saying so, staggered, 
and fell beside her late burden. And all that 
Mr. MeClosky could do was to feebly rub his 
beard, and say to himself vaguely and incohe- 
rently, that “ Jinny had fetched him.” 


20 


THE BOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


CHAPTER n. 

Before noon the next day, it was generally 
believed throughout F mr Forks that Ridgeway 
Dent had been attacked and wounded at Chemi- 
sal Ridge by a highwayman, who fled on the 
approach of the Wingdam coach. It is to be 
presumed that this statement met with Ridge- 
way’s approval, as he did not contradict it, nor 
supplement it with any details. His wound 
was severe, but not dangerous. After the first 
excitement had subsided, there was, I think, a 
prevailing impression common to the provincial 
mind, that his misfortune was the result of the 
defective moral quality of his being a stranger, 
and was, in a vague sort of a way, a warning to 
others, and a lesson to him. “ Did you hear 
how that San-Francisco feller was took down 
the other night ? ” was the average tone of intro- 
ductory remark. Indeed, there was a general 
suggestion that Ridgeway’s presence was one 
that no self-respecting, high-minded highway- 
man, honorably conservative of the best inter- 
ests of Tuolumne County, could for a moment 
tolerate. 

Except for the few words spoken on that 
eventful morning, Ridgeway was reticent of 
the past. When Jenny strove to gather scr >9 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


21 


details of the affray that might offer a clew to 
his unknown assailant, a subtle twinkle in his 
brown eyes was the only response. When Mr. 
McClosky attempted the same process, the 
young gentleman threw abusive epithets, and, 
eventually slippers, teaspoons, and other lighter 
articles within the reach of an invalid, at the 
head of his questioner. “ I think he’s coming 
round, Jinny,” said Mr. McClosky : “ he laid 
for me this morning with a candlestick.” 

It was about this time that Miss Jenny, 
having sworn her father to secrecy regarding 
the manner in which Ridgeway had been 
carried into the house, conceived the idea of 
addressing the young man as “ Mr. Dent,” and 
of apologizing for intruding whenever she 
entered the room in the discharge of her house- 
hold duties. It was about this time that she 
became more rigidly conscientious to those 
duties, and less general in her attentions. It 
was at this time that the quality of the invalid’s 
diet improved, and that she consulted him less 
frequently about it. It was about this time 
that she began to see more company, that the 
house was greatly frequented by her former 
admirers, with whom she rode, walked, and 
..anced. It was at about this time also, and 
when Ridgeway was able to be brought out on 
the veranda in a chair, that, with great archness 


22 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


of manner, she introduced to him Miss Luc) 
Ashe, the sister of her betrothed, a flashing 
brunette, and terrible heart-breaker of Four 
Forks. And, in the midst of this gayety, she 
concluded that she would spend a week with 
the Robinsons, to whom she owed a visit. She 
enjoyed herself greatly there, so much, indeed, 
that she became quite hollow-eyed, the result, 
as she explained to her father, of a too frequent 
indulgence in festivity. “You see, father, I 
won’t have many chances after John and I are 
married : you know how queer he is, and I must 
make the most of my time ; ” and she laughed 
an odd little laugh, which had lately become 
habitual to her. “And how is Mr. Dent 
getting on ? ” Her father replied that he was. 
getting on very well indeed, — so well, in fact, 
that he was able to leave for San Francisco two 
days ago. “ He wanted to be remembered to 
you, Jinny, — ‘ remembered kindly,’ — yes, they 
is the very words he used,” said Mr. McClosky, 
looking down, and consulting one of his large 
shoes for corroboration. Miss Jenny was glad 
to hear that he was so much better. Miss 
Jenny could not imagine any thing that pleased 
her more tliaji to know that he was so strong as 
to be able to rejoin his friends again, who must 
love him so much, and be so anxious about him. 
Her father thought she would be pleased, and, 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 28 

now that lie was gone, there was really no neces- 
sity for her to hurry back. Miss Jenny, in a 
high metallic voice, did not know that she had 
expressed any desire to stay, still if her pres- 
ence had become distasteful at home, if her 
own father was desirous of getting rid of her, 
if, when she was so soon to leave his roof for- 
ever, he still begrudged her those few days re- 
maining, if — “ My God, Jinny, so help me ! ” 
said Mr. McClosky, clutching despairingly at 
his beard, “ I didn’t go for to say any thing of 
the kind. I thought that you” — “Never 
mind, father,” interrupted Jenny magnani- 
mously, “ you misunderstood me : of course 
you did, you couldn’t help it — you’re a MAN ! ” 
Mr. McClosky, sorely crushed, would have 
vaguely protested; but his daughter, having 
relieved herself, after the manner of her sex, 
with a mental personal application of an 
abstract statement, forgave him with a kiss. 

Nevertheless, for two or three days after her 
return, Mr. McClosky followed his daughter 
about the house with yearning eyes, and occa- 
sionally with timid, diffident feet. Sometimes 
he came upon her suddenly at her household 
tasks, with an excuse so palpably fahe, and a 
careless manner so outrageously studied, that 
she was fain to be embarrassed for him. Later, 
he took to rambling about the house at night, 


24 


THE ROSE OE TUOLUMNE. 


and was often seen noiselessly passing and 
repassing through the hall after she had retired. 
On one occasion, he was surprised, first by sleep, 
and then by the early-rising Jenny, as he lay on 
the rug outside her chamber-door. “ You 
treat me like a child, father,” said Jenny. “I 
thought, Jinny,” said the father apologetically, 
— u I thought I heard sounds as if you was takin’ 
on inside, and, listenin’ I fell asleep.” — “You 
dear, old simple-minded baby ! ” said Jenny, look- 
ing past her father’s eyes, and lifting his griz- 
zled locks one by one with meditative fingers : 
“what should I be takin’ on for? Look how 
much taller I am than you ! ” she said, suddenly 
lifting herself up to the extreme of her superb 
figure. Then rubbing his head rapidly with 
both hands, as if she were anointing his hair 
with some rare unguent, she patted him on the 
back, and returned to her room. The result of 
this and one or two other equally sympathetic 
interviews was to produce a change in Mr. 
McClosky’s manner, which was, if possible, 
still more discomposing. He grew unjustifiably 
hilarious, cracked jokes with the servants, and 
repeated to Jenny humorous stories, with the 
attitude of facetiousness carefully preserved 
throughout the entire narration, and the point 
utterly ignored and forgotten. Certain inci- 
dents reminded him of funny things, which 


THE ROSE OP TUOLUMNE. 


25 


invariably turned out to have not the slight- 
est relevancy or application. He occasionally 
brought home with him practical humorists, 
with a sanguine hope of setting them going, 
like the music-box, for his daughter’s edifica- 
tion. He essayed the singing of melodies with 
great freedom of style, and singular limitation 
of note. He sang “ Come haste to the Wed- 
ding, Ye Lasses and Maidens,” of which he 
knew a single line, and that incorrectly, as 
being peculiarly apt and appropriate. Yet 
away from the house and his daughter’s pres 
ence, he was silent and distraught. His absence 
of mind was particularly noted by his workmen 
at the Empire Quartz Mill. “Ef the old 
man don’t look out and wake up,” said his fore- 
man, “ he’ll hev them feet of his yet under the 
stamps. When he ain’t givin’ his mind to ’em, 
they is altogether too promiskuss.” 

A few nights later, Miss Jenny recognized 
her father’s hand in a timid tap at the door. 
She opened it, and he stood before her, with 
a valise in his hand, equipped as for a journey. 
“ I takes the stage to-night, Jinny dear, from 
Four Forks to ’Frisco. Maybe I may drop in 
on Jack afore I go. I’ll be back in a week. 
Good-by.” 

“ Good-by.” He still held her hand. Pres- 
ently he drew her back into the room, closing 


26 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


the door carefully, and glancing around. There 
was a look of profound cunning in his eye as 
he said slowly, — 

“ Bear up, and keep dark, Jinny dear, and 
trust to the old man. Various men has various 
ways. Thar is ways as is common, and ways as 
is uncommon ; ways as is easy, and ways as is 
oneasy. Bear up, and keep dark.” With this 
Delphic utterance he put his finger to his lips, 
and vanished. 

It was ten o’clock when he reached Four 
Forks. A few minutes later, he stood on the 
threshold of that dwelling described by the 
Four Forks “Sentinel” as “the palatial resi- 
dence of John Ashe,” and known to the local 
satirist as the “ ash-box.” “ Hevin’ to lay by 
two hours, John,” he said to his prospective 
son-in-law, as he took his hand at the door, 
“ a few words of social converse, not on busi- 
ness, but strictly private, seems to be about as 
nat’ral a thing as a man can do.” This intro- 
duction, evidently the result of some study, and 
plainly committed to memory, seemed so satis- 
factory to Mr. McClosky, that he repeated it 
again, after John Ashe had led him into his 
private office, where, depositing his valise in 
the middle of the floor, and sitting down before 
it, he began carefully to avoid the eye of his 
host. John Ashe, a tall, dark, handsome Ken 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


27 


tuckian, with whom even the trifles of life 
were evidently full of serious import, waited 
with a kind of chivalrous respect the further 
speech of his guest. Being utterly devoid of 
any sense of the ridiculous, he always accepted 
Mr. McClosky as a grave fact, singular only 
from his own want of experience of the class. 

“ Ores is running light now,” said Mr. Mc- 
Closky with easy indifference. 

John Ashe returned that he had noticed the 
same fact in the receipts of the mill at Four 
Forks. 

Mr. McClosky rubbed his beard, and looked 
at his valise, as if for sympathy and sugges- 
tion. 

“You don’t reckon on having any trouble 
with any of them chaps as you cut out with 
Jinny ? ” 

John Ashe, rather haughtily, had never 
thought of that. “ I saw Ranee hanging round 
your house the other night, when I took your 
daughter home ; but he gave me a wide berth,” 
he added carelessly. 

“ Surely,” said Mr. McClosky, with a pecu- 
liar winking of the eye. After a pause, he took 
a fresh departure from his valise. 

“ A few words, John, ez between man and 
man, ez between my daughter’s father and her 
husband who expects to be, is about the thing, 


28 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


I take it, as is fair and square. I kem here to 
Isay them. They’re about Jinny, my gal.” 

Ashe’s grave face brightened, to Mr. Mc- 
Closky’s evident discomposure. 

“ Maybe I should have said about her 
mother ; but, the same bein’ a stranger to you, 
I says naterally, 4 Jinny.’ ” 

Ashe nodded courteously. Mr. McClosky, 
with his eyes on his valise, went on, — 

“ It is sixteen year ago as I married Mrs. 
McClosky in the State of Missouri. She let on, 
at the time, to be a widder, — a widder with one 
child. When I say let on, I mean to imply 
that I subsekently found out that she was not a 
widder, nor a wife ; and the father of the child 
was, so to speak, onbeknowst. Thet child was 
Jinny — my gal.” 

With his eyes on his valise, and quietly 
ignoring the wholly-crimsoned face and swiftly- 
darkening brow of his host, he continued, — 
“Many little things sorter tended to make 
our home in Missouri onpleasant. A disposi- 
tion to smash furniture, and heave knives 
around ; an inclination to howl when drunk, 
and that frequent; a habitooal use of vulgar 
language, and a tendency to cuss the casooal 
visitor, — seemed to pint,” added Mr. Mc- 
Closky with submissive hesitation “ that — she 
— was — so to speak — quite onsuited to the 
marriage relation in its holiest aspeck.” 


THE ROSE OP TUOLUMNE. 


29 


“ Damnation ! Why didn’t ” — burst out 
John Ashe, erect and furious. 

“At the end of two year,” continued Mr. 
McClosky, still intent on the valise, “ I allowed 
I’d get a diworce. Et about thet time, how- 
ever, Providence sends a circus into thet town, 
and a feller ez rode three horses to onct. Kev- 
in’ allez a taste for athletic sports, she left town 
with this feller, leavin’ me and Jinny behind. 
I sent word to her, thet, if she would give Jinny 
to me, we’d call it quits. And she did.” 

“ Tell me,” gasped Ashe, “ did you ask your 
daughter to ^eep this from me ? or did she do it 
of her own accord ? ” 

“ She doesn’t know it,” said Mr. McClosky. 
“ She thinks I’m her father, and that her 
mother’s dead.” 

“ Then, sir, this is your ” — 

“ I don’t know,” said Mr. McClosky slowly, 
“ ez I’ve asked any one to marry my Jinny. I 
don’t know ez I’ve persood that ez a biziness, or 
even taken it up as a healthful recreation.” 

John Ashe paced the room furiously. Mr. 
McClosky’s eyes left the valise, and followed 
him curiously. “ Where is this woman ? ” de- 
manded Ashe suddenly. McClosky’s eyes 
sought the valise again. 

“ She went to Kansas ; from Kansas she went 
into Texas ; from Texas she eventooally came 


50 


THE EOSE OF TUOLEMNE. 


to Califomy. Being here, I’ve purvided her 
with money, when her business was slack, 
through a friend.” 

John Ashe groaned. “ She’s gettin’ rather 
old and shaky for bosses, and now does the 
tight-rope business and flying trapeze. Never 
hevin’ seen her perform,” continued Mr. Me- 
Closky with conscientious caution, “ I can’t say 
how she gets on. On the bills she looks well. 
Thar is a poster, ” said Mr. McClosky glan- 
cing at Ashe, and opening his valise, — “ thar is 
a poster givin’ her performance at Marysville 
next month.” Mr. McClosky slowly unfolded 
a large yellow-and-blue printed * poster, pro- 
fusely illustrated. “ She calls herself ‘ Mam- 
s’elle J. Miglawski, the great Russian Tra- 
peziste.’ ” 

John Ashe tore it from his hand. “ Of 
course,” he said, suddenly facing Mr. McClosky, 
u you don’t expect me to go on with this ? ” 

Mr. McClosky took up the poster, carefully 
refolded it, and returned it to his valise. 
“When you break off with Jinny,” he said 
quietly, “ I don’t want any thing said ’bout 
this. She doesn’t know it. She’s a woman, 
and I reckon you’re a white man.” 

“ But what am I to say ? How am I to go 
back of my word ? ” 

“ Write her a note. Say something hez come 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


31 


to your knowledge (don’t say what) that makes 
you break it off. You needn’t be afeard Jinny’ll 
ever ask you what.” 

John Ashe hesitated. He felt he had been 
cruelly wronged. No gentleman, no Ashe, 
could go on further in this affair. It was pre- 
posterous to think of it. But somehow he felt 
at the moment very unlike a gentleman, or an 
Ashe, and was quite sure he should break down 
under Jenny’s steady eyes. But then — he 
could write to her. 

“ So ores is about as light here as on the 
Ridge. Well, I reckon they’ll come up before 
the rains. Good-night.” Mr. McClosky took 
the hand that his host mechanically extended, 
shook it gravely, and was gone. 

When Mr. McClosky, a week later, stepped 
again upon his own veranda, he saw through 
the French window the figure of a man in his 
parlor. Under his hospitable roof, the sight was 
not unusual ; but, for an instant, a subtle sense 
of disappointment thrilled him. When he saw 
it was not the face of Ashe turned toward him, 
he was relieved ; but when he saw the tawny 
beard, and quick, passionate eyes of Henry 
Ranee, he felt a new sense of apprehension, so 
that he fell to rubbing his beard almost upoc 
his very threshold. 


52 


THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


Jenny ran into the hall, and seized her 
father with a little cry of joy. “ Father,” said 
Jenny in a hurried whisper, “ don’t mind him” 
indicating Ranee wdth a toss of her yellow 
braids : “ he’s going soon. And I think, father. 
I’ve done him wrong. But it’s all over with 
John and me now. Read that note, and see 
how he’s insulted me.” Her lip quivered ; but 
she went on, “ It’s Ridgeway that he means, 
father ; and I believe it was his hand struck 
Ridgeway down, or that he knows who did. 
But hush now ! not a word.” 

She gave him a feverish kiss, and glided back 
into the parlor, leaving.Mr. McClosky, perplexed 
and irresolute, with the note in his hand. He 
glanced at it hurriedly, and saw that it was 
couched in almost the very words he had sug- 
gested. But a sudden, apprehensive recollec- 
tion came over him. He listened ; and, with an 
exclamation of dismay, he seized his hat, and 
ran out of the house, but too late. At the 
same moment a quick, nervous footstep was 
heard upon the veranda ; the French window 
flew open, and, with a light laugh of greeting, 
Ridgeway stepped into the room. 

Jenny’s finer ear first caught the step. Jen- 
ny’s swifter feelings had sounded the dept! is of 
hope, of joy, of despair, before he entered the 
-oom. Jenny’s pale face was the only one that 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


83 


met his, self-possessed and self-reliant, when he 
stood before them. An angry flush suffused 
even the pink roots of Ranee’s beard as he rose 
to his feet. An ominous fire sprang into Ridge- 
way’s eyes, and a spasm of hate and scorn 
passed over the lower part of his face, and left 
the mouth and jaw immobile and rigid. 

Yet he was the first to speak. “ 1 owe you an 
apology,” he said to Jenny, with a suave scorn 
that brought the indignant blood back to her 
cheek, “ for this intrusion ; but I ask no pardon 
for withdrawing from the only spot where that 
man dare confront me with safety.” 

With an exclamation of rage, Ranee sprang 
toward him. But as quickly Jenny stood be- 
tween them, erect and menacing. “ There must 
be no quarrel here,” she said to Ranee. “ While 
I protect your right as my guest, don’t oblige 
me to remind you of mine as your hostess.” 
She turned with a half-deprecatory air to Ridge- 
way; but he was gone. So was her father. 
Only Ranee remained 'with a look of ill-con- 
cealed triumph on his face. 

Without looking at him, she passed toward 
the door. When she reached it, she turned. 
“ You asked me a question an hour ago. Come 
to me in the garden, at nine o’clock to-night, 
and I will answer you. But premise me, first, 
to keep away from Mr. Dent. Give me your 


84 


THE BOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


word not to seek kirn — to avoid him, if he 
seeks you. Do you promise ? It is well.” 

He would have taken her hand; but she 
waved him away. In another moment he heard 
the swift rustle of her dress in the hall, the 
sound of her feet upon the stair, the sharp 
closing of her bedroom door, and all was quiet. 

And even thus quietly the day wore away ; 
and the night rose slowly from the valley, and 
overshadowed the mountains with purple wings 
that fanned the still air into a breeze, until the 
moon followed it, and lulled every thing to rest 
as with the laying-on of white and benedictory 
hands. It was a lovely night ; but Henry Ranee, 
waiting impatiently beneath a sycamore at the 
foot of the garden, saw no beauty in earth or 
air or sky. A thousand suspicions common to a 
jealous nature, a vague superstition of the spot, 
filled his mind with distrust and doubt. “ If 
this should be a trick to keep my hands off that 
insolent pup ! ” he muttered. But, even as the 
thought passed his tongue, a white figure slid 
from the shrubbery near the house, glided along 
the line of picket-fence, and then stopped, mid- 
way, motionless in the moonlight. 

It was she. But he scarcely recognized her 
in the white drapery that covered her head and 
shoulders and breast. He approached her with 
a hurried whisper. “ Let us withdraw from the 
moonlight. Everybody can see us here.” 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


36 


“We have nothing to say that cannot be said 
in the moonlight, Henry Ranee,” she replied, 
coldly receding from his proffered hand. She 
trembled for a moment, as if with a chill, and 
then suddenly turned upon him. “ Hold up 
your head, and let me look at you ! I’ ve known 
only what men are : let me see what a traitor 
looks like ! ” 

He recoiled more from her wild face than her 
words. He saw from the first that her hollow 
cheeks and hollow eyes were blazing with fever. 
He was no coward ; but he would have fled. 

“ You are ill, Jenny,” he said : “you had best 
return to the house. Another time ” — 

“ Stop ! ” she cried hoarsely. “ Move from 
this spot, and I’ll call for help ! Attempt to 
leave me now, and I’ll proclaim you the assas- 
sin that you are ! ” 

“ It was a fair fight,” he said doggedly. 

“ Was it a fair fight to creep behind an un- 
armed and unsuspecting man? Was it a fair 
fight to try to throw suspicion on some one else ? 
Was it a fair fight to deceive me? Liar and 
Oward that you are ! ” 

He made a stealthy step toward her with evil 
eyes, and a wickeder hand that crept within his 
breast. She saw the motion ; but it only stung 
her to newer fury. 

“ Strike ! ” she said with blazing eyes, throw- 


36 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


ing hex hands open before him. “ Strike ! Are 
yon afraid of the woman who dares you ? Or 
do yon keep your knife for the backs of unsus- 
pecting men ? Strike, I tell you ! No ? Look, 
then ! ” With a sudden movement, she toie 
from her head and shoulders the thick lace 
shawl that had concealed her figure, and stood 
before him. “ Look ! ” she cried passionately, 
pointing to the bosom and shoulders of her 
white dress, darkly streaked with faded stains 
and ominous discoloration, — “ look ! This is 
the dress I wore that morning when I found 
him lying here, — here , - — bleeding from your 
cowardly knife. Look ! Do you see ? This is his 
blood, — my darling boy’s blood ! — one drop of 
which, dead and faded as it is, is more precious 
to me than the whole living pulse of any other 
man. Look ! I come to you to-night, chris- 
tened with his blood, and dare you to strike, — 
dare you to strike, him again through me, and 
mingle my blood with his. Strike, I implore 
you ! Strike ! if you have any pity on me, for 
God’s sake ! Strike ! if you are a man ! Look ! 
Here lay his head on my shoulder ; here I held 
him to my breast, where never — so help me my 
God ! — another man — Ah ! ” — 

She reeled against the fence, and something 
that had flashed in Ranee’s hand dropped at her 
feet; for another flash and report rolled him 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


37 


aver in the dnst : and across his writhing body 
two men strode, and caught her ere she fell. 

“ She has only fainted,” said Mr. MeClosky 
“ Jinny dear, my girl, speak to me ! ” 

“ What is this on her dress ? ” said Ridgeway, 
kneeling beside her, and lifting his set and col- 
orless face. At the sound of his voice, the color 
came faintly back to her cheek : she opened her 
eyes, and smiled. 

“It’s only your blood, dear boy,” she said; 
“ but look a little deeper, and you’ll find my 
own.” 

She put up her two yearning hands, and drew 
his face and lips down to her own. When 
Ridgeway raised his head again, her eyes were 
closed ; but her mouth still smiled as with the 
memory of a kiss. 

They bore her to the house, still breathing, 
but unconscious. That night the road was filled 
with clattering horsemen; and the summoned 
skill of the countryside for leagues away 
gathered at her couch. The wound, they 
said, was not essentially dangerous; but they 
had grave fears of the shock to a system that 
already seemed suffering from some strange and 
unaccountable nervous exhaustion. The best 
medical skill of Tuelumne happened to be young 
and observing, and waited patiently an oppor- 
tunity to account for it. He was presently 
rewarded. 


36 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


For toward morning she rallied, and looked 
feebly around. Then she beckoned her father 
toward her, and whispered, “ Where is he ? ” 

“ They took him away, Jinny dear, in a cart. 
He won’t trouble you agin.” He stopped; for 
Miss Jenny had raised herself on her elbow, and 
was levelling her black brows at him. Rut two 
kicks from the young surgeon, and a significant 
motion towards the door, sent Mr. McClosky 
away muttering. “ How should I know that 
‘ he ’ meant Ridgeway?” he said apologetically, 
as he went and returned with the young gentle- 
man. The surgeon, who was still holding her 
pulse, smiled, and thought that — with a little 
care — and attention — the stimulants — might 
be — diminished — and — he — might leave — 
the patient for some hours with perfect safety. 
He would give further directions to Mr. 
McClosky — down stairs. 

It was with great archness of manner, that, 
half an hour later, Mr. McClosky entered the 
room with a preparatory cough ; and it was with 
some disappointment that he found Ridgeway 
standing quietly by the window, and his daugh* 
ter apparently fallen into a light doze. He was 
still more concerned, when, after Ridgeway had 
retired, noticing a pleasant smile playing about 
her lips, he said softly — 

“ You was thinking of some one, Jinny? ” 


THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 


39 


‘ Yes, father,” the gray eyes met his steadi- 
ly, — “ of poor John Ashe ! ” 

Her recovery was swift. Nature, that had 
seemed to stand jealously aloof from her in her 
mental anguish, was kind to the physical hurt 
of her favorite child. The suberb physique, 
which had been her charm and her trial, now 
stood her in good stead. The healing balsam of 
the pine, the balm of resinous gums, and the 
rare medicaments of Sierran altitudes, touched 
her as it might have touched the wounded doe; 
so that in two weeks she was able to walk about. 
And when, at the end of the month, Ridgeway 
returned from a flying visit to San Francisco, 
and jumped from the Wingdam coach at four 
o’clock in the morning, the Rose of Tuolumne, 
with the dewy petals of either cheek fresh as 
when first unfolded to his kiss, confronted him 
on the road. 

With a common instinct, their young feet both 
climbed the little hill now sacred to their 
thought. When they reached its summit, they 
were both, I think, a little disappointed. 
There is a fragrance in the unfolding of a pas- 
sion, that escapes the perfect flower. Jenny 
;hought the night was not as beautiful; Ridge- 
way, that the long ride had blunted his percep- 
tions. But they had the frankness to confess it 
to each other, with the rare delight of such a 


40 THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 

confession, and the comparison of details which 
they thought each had forgotten. And with 
this, and an occasional pitying reference to the 
blank period when they had not known each 
other, hand in hand they reached the house. 

Mr. McClosky was awaiting them impatiently 
upon the veranda. When Miss Jenny had 
slipped up stairs to replace a collar that stood 
somewhat suspiciously awry, Mr. McClosky 
drew Ridgeway solemnly aside. He held a 
large theatre poster in one hand, and an open 
newspaper in the other. 

“ I alius said,” he remarked slowly, with the 
air of merely renewing a suspended conversation, 
— “ I alius said that riding three horses to onct 
wasn’t exactly in her line. It would seem that 
it ain’t. From remarks in this yer paper, it 
would appear that she tried it on at Marysville 
last week, and broke her neck.” 


A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. 
JOHN OAKHURST. 


H E always thought it must have been fate. 

Certainly nothing could have been more 
inconsistent with his habits than to have been 
in the Plaza at seven o’clock of that midsummer 
morning. The sight of his colorless face in 
Sacramento was rare at that season, and, indeed, 
at any season, anywhere publicly, before two 
o’clock in the afternoon. Looking back upon it 
in after-years in the light of a chanceful life, he 
determined, with the characteristic philosophy 
of his profession, that it must have been fate. 

Yet it is my duty, as a strict chronicler of 
facts, to state that Mr. Oakhurst’s presence 
there that morning was due to a very simple 
cause. At exactly half-past six, the bank being 
then a winner to the amount of twenty thou- 
sand dollars, he had risen from the faro-table, 
relinquished his seat to an accomplished assist- 
ant, and withdrawn quietly, without attracting 
a glance from the silent, anxious faces bowed 
over the table. But when he entered his lux- 


42 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


urious sleeping-room, across the passage-way, 
he was a little shocked at finding the sun stream- 
ing through an inadvertently opened window. 
Something in the rare beauty of the morning, 
perhaps something in the novelty of the idea, 
struck him as he was about to close the blinds ; 
and he hesitated. Then, taking his hat from 
the table, he stepped down a private staircase 
into the street. 

The people who were abroad at that early 
hour were of a class quite unknown to Mr. Oak- 
hurst. There were milkmen and hucksters de- 
livering their wares, small tradespeople opening 
their shops, housemaids sweeping doorsteps, 
and occasionally a child. These Mr. Oakhurst 
regarded with a certain cold curiosity, perhaps 
quite free from the cynical disfavor with which 
he generally looked upon the more pretentious 
of his race whom he was in the habit of meeting. 
Indeed, I think he was not altogether displeased 
with the admiring glances which these humble 
women threw after his handsome face and figure, 
conspicuous even in a country of fine-looking 
men. While it is very probable that this 
wicked vagabond, in the pride of his social iso- 
lation, would have been coldly indifferent to the 
advances of a fine lady, a little girl who ran ad- 
miringly by his side in a ragged dress had the 
power to call a faint flush into his colorless 


ME. JOHN OAKHUEST. 


43 


cheek. He dismissed her at last, but not until 
she had found out — what, sooner or later, her 
large-hearted and discriminating sex inevitably 
did — that he was exceedingly free and open- 
handed with his money, and also — what, 
perhaps, none other of her sex ever did — that 
the bold black eyes of this fine gentleman were 
in reality of a brownish and even tender gray. 

There was a small garden before a white 
cottage in a side-street, that attracted Mr. 
Oakhurst’s attention. It was filled with roses, 
heliotrope, and verbena, — flowers familiar 
enough to him in the expensive and more por- 
table form of bouquets, but, as it seemed to him 
then, never before so notably lovely. Perhaps it 
was because the dew was yet fresh upon them ; 
perhaps it was because they were unplucked: 
but Mr. Oakhurst admired them — not as a 
possible future tribute to the fascinating and 
accomplished Miss Ethelinda, then performing 
at the Varieties, for Mr. Oakhurst’s especial ben- 
efit, as she had often assured him ; nor yet as a 
douceur to the inthralling Miss Montmorrissy, 
with whom Mr. Oakhurst expected to sup that 
evening ; but simply for himself, and, mayhap, 
for the flowers’ sake. Howbeit he passed on, 
and so out into the open Plaza, where, finding a 
bench under a cottonwood-tree, he first dusted 
the seat with his handkerchief, and then sat 
down. 


44 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


It was a fine morning. The air was so still 
and calm, that a sigh from the sycamores seemed 
like the deep-drawn breath of the just awaken- 
ing tree, and the faint rustle of its boughs as 
the outstretching of cramped and reviving limbs 
Far away the Sierras stood out against a sky 
so remote as to be of no positive color, — so re- 
mote, that even the sun despaired of ever reach- 
ing it, and so expended its strength recklessly 
on the whole landscape, until it fairly glittered 
in a white and vivid contrast. With a very 
rare impulse, Mr. Oakhurst took off his hat, 
and half reclined on the bench, with his face to 
the sky. Certain birds who had taken a critical 
attitude on a spray above him, apparently began 
an animated discussion regarding his possible 
malevolent intentions. One or two, emboldened 
by the silence, hopped on the ground at his feet, 
until the sound of wheels on the gravel-walk 
frightened them away. 

Looking up, he saw a man coming slowly 
toward him, wheeling a nondescript vehicle, in 
which a woman was partly sitting, partly reclin- 
ing. Without knowing why, Mr. Oakhurst 
instantly conceived that the carriage was the 
invention and workmanship of the man, partly 
from its oddity, partly from the strong, mechan- 
ical hand that grasped it, and partly from a 
certain pride and visible consciousness in the 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


45 


manner in which the man handled it. Then 
Mr. Oakhurst saw something more: the man’s 
face was familiar. With that regal faculty of 
not forgetting a face that had ever given him 
professional audience, he instantly classified it 
under the following mental formula: “At 
’Frisco, Polka Saloon. Lost his week’s wages. 
I reckon — seventy dollars — on red. Never 
came again.” There was, however, no trace of 
this in the calm eyes and unmoved face that 
lie turned upon the stranger, who, on the con- 
trary, blushed, looked embarrassed, hesitated 
and then stopped with an involuntary motion 
that brought the carriage and its fair occupant 
face to face with Mr. Oakhurst. 

I should hardly do justice to the position she 
will occupy in this veracious chronicle by de- 
scribing the lady now, if, indeed, I am able to 
do it at all. Certainly the popular estimate 
was conflicting. The late Col. Starbottle — to 
whose large experience of a charming sex I have 
before been indebted for many valuable sugges- 
tions — had, I regret to say, depreciated her fas- 
cinations. “A yellow-faced cripple, by dash! 
a sick woman, with mahogany eyes ; one of your 
blanked spiritual creatures — with no flesh on 
her bones.” On the other hand, however, she 
enjoyed later much complimentary disparage- 
ment from her own sex. Miss Celestina Howard, 


46 


MR. JOHH OAKHURST. 


second leader in the ballet at the Varieties, had, 
with great alliterative directness, in after-years, 
denominated her as an “ aquiline asp.” Mile. 
Brimboriun remembered that she had always 
warned “ Mr. Jack ” that this woman would 
“empoison” him. But Mt. Oakhurst, whose 
impressions are perhaps the most important, 
only saw a pale, thin, deep-eyed woman, raised 
above the level of her companion by the refine- 
ment of long suffering and isolation, and a 
certain shy virginity of manner. There was a 
suggestion of physical purity in the folds of her 
fresh-looking robe, and a certain picturesque 
tastefulness in the details, that, without know- 
ing why, made him think that the robe was her 
invention and handiwork, even as the carriage 
she occupied was evidently the work of her 
companion. Her own hand, a trifle too thin, 
but well-shaped, subtle-fingered, and gentle- 
womanly, rested on the side of the carriage, the 
counterpart of the strong mechanical grasp of 
her companion’s. 

There was some obstruction to the progress 
of the vehicle ; and Mr. Oakhurst stepped for- 
ward to assist. While the wheel was being 
lifted over the curbstone, it was necessary that 
she should hold his arm ; and for a moment her 
thin hand rested there, light and cold as a snow' 
flake, and then, as it seemed to him, like a 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


47 


enow-flake melted away. Then there was a 
pause, and then conversation, the lady joining 
occasionally and shyly. 

It appeared that they were man and wife; 
that for the past two years she had been a great 
invalid, and had lost the use of her lower limbs 
from rheumatism; that until lately she had 
been confined to her bed, until her husband — 
who was a master-carpenter — had bethought 
himself to make her this carriage. He took her 
out regularly for an airing before going to work, 
because it was his only time, and — they attracted 
less attention. They had tried many doctors, 
but without avail. They had been advised to 
go to the Sulphur Springs ; but it was expensive. 
Mr. Decker, the husband, had once saved eighty 
dollars for that purpose, but while in San Fran- 
cisco had his pocket picked — Mr Decker was so 
senseless ! (The intelligent reader need not be 
told that it is the lady who is speaking.) They 
had never been able to make up the sum again, 
and they had given up the idea. It was a dread- 
ful thing to have one’s pocket picked. Did he 
not think so ? 

Her husband’s face was crimson; but Mr. 
OaLhurst’s countenance was quite calm and 
unmoved, as he gravely agreed with her, and 
waited by her side until they passed the little 
garden that he had admired. Here Mr. Oak- 


48 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


hurst commanded a halt, and, going to the door, 
astounded the proprietor by a preposterously 
extravagant offer for a choice of the flowers. 
Presently he returned to the carriage with his 
arms full of roses, heliotrope, and verbena, and 
cast them in the lap of the invalid. While she 
was bending over them with childish delight, 
Mr. Oakhurst took the opportunity of drawing 
her husband aside. 

.“Perhaps,” he said in a low voice, and a 
manner quite free from any personal annoyance, 
— “perhaps it’s just as well that you lied to her 
as you did. You can say now that the pick- 
pocket was arrested the other day, and you got 
your money back.” Mr. Oakhurst quietly 
slipped four twenty-dollar gold-pieces into the 
broad hand of the bewildered Mr. Decker. 
“ Say that — or any thing you like — but the 
truth. Promise me you won’t say that.” 

The man promised. Mr. Oakhurst quietly 
returned to the front of the little carriage. 
The sick woman was still eagerly occupied with 
the flowers, and, as she raised her eyes to his, 
her faded cheek seemed to have caught some 
color from the roses, and her eyes some of their 
dewy freshness. But at that instant Mr. Oak 
hurst lifted his hat, and before she could thank 
him was gone. 

I grieve to say that Mr. Decker shamelessly 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


49 


broke his promise. That night, in the very 
goodness of his heart and uxorious self-abnega- 
tion, he, like all devoted husbands, not only 
offered himself, but his friend and benefactor, 
as a sacrifice on the family-altar. In is only fair, 
however, to add that he spoke with great fervor 
of the generosity of Mr. Oakhurst, and dwelt 
with an enthusiasm quite common with his 
class on the mysterious fame and prodigal vices 
of the gambler. 

“ And now, Elsie dear, say that you’ll forgive 
me,” said Mr. Decker, dropping on one knee 
beside his wife’s couch. “ I did it for the best. 
It was for you, dearey, that I put that money 
on them cards that night in ’Frisco. I thought 
to win a heap — enough to take you away, and 
enough left to get you a new dress.” 

Mrs. Decker smiled, and pressed her hus- 
band’s hand. “I do forgive you, Joe dear,” 
she said, still smiling, with eyes abstractedly 
fixed on the ceiling; “and you ought to be 
whipped for deceiving me so, you bad boy ! and 
making me make such a speech. There, say no 
more about it. If you’ll be Very good hereafter, 
and will just now hand me that cluster of roses, 
I’ll forgive you.” She took the branch in lier 
fingers, lifted the roses to her face, and pres- 
ently said, behind their leaves, — 

“Joe!” 


60 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


“ What is it, lovey ? ” 

“ Do you think that this Mr. — what do yo ~2 
call him? — Jack Oakhurst would have given 
that money back to you, if I hadn’t made that 
6peech ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ If he hadn’t seen me at all ? ” 

Mr. Decker looked up. His wife had man- 
aged in some way to cover up her whole face 
with the roses, except her eyes, which were 
dangerously bright. 

“ No ! It was you, Elsie — it was all along of 
seeing you that made him do it.” 

“ A poor sick woman like me ? ” 

“A sweet, little, lovely, pooty Elsie — Joe’s 
own little wifey ! How could he help it ? ” 

Mrs. Decker fondly cast one arm around her 
husband’s neck, still keeping the roses to her 
face with the other. From behind them she 
began to murmur gently and idiotically, “ Dear, 
ole square Joey. Elsie’s oney booful big bear.” 
But, really, I do not see that my duty as a 
chronicler of facts compels me to continue this 
little lady’s speech any further; and, out of 
respect to the unmarried reader, I stop. 

Nevertheless, the next morning Mrs. Decker 
betrayed some slight and apparently uncalled 
for irritability on reaching the Plaza, and pres- 
ently desired her husband to wheel her baclf 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


51 


home. Moreover, she was very much aston- 
ished at meeting Mr. Oakhurst just as they 
were returning, and even doubted if it were he, 
and questioned her husband as to his identity 
with the stranger of yesterday as he approached. 
Her manner to Mr. Oakhurst, also, was quite in 
contrast with her husband’s frank welcome. 
Mi.*. Oakhurst instantly detected it. “ Her hus- 
band has told her all, and she dislikes me,” he 
said to himself, with that fatal appreciation of 
the half-truths of a woman’s motives that 
causes the wisest masculine critic to stumble, 
He lingered only long enough to take the busi- 
ness address of the husband, and then lifting 
his hat gravely, without looking at the lady, 
went his way. It struck the honest master-car- 
penter as one of the charming anomalies of his 
wife’s character, that, although the meeting was 
evidently very much, constrained and unpleas- 
ant, instantly afterward his wife’s spirits began 
to rise. “ You was hard on him, a leetle hard ; 
wasn’t you, Elsie?” said Mr. Decker dep- 
recatingly. “ I’m afraid he may think I’ve 
broke my promise.” — “Ah, indeed!” said the 
lady indifferently. Mr. Decker instantly stepped 
round to the front of die vehicle. “ You look 
like an A 1 first-class lady riding down Broad- 
way in her own carriage, Elsie,” said he. “I 
never seed you lookin’ so peart and sassy 
befoie.” 


52 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


A few days later, the proprietor of the San 
Isabel Sulphur Springs received the following 
note in Mr. Oakhurst’s well-known, dainty 
hand : — 

“ Dear Steve, — I’ve been thinking over your prop- 
osition to buy Nichols’s quarter-interest, and have con- 
cluded to go in. But I don’t see how the thing will pay 
until you have more accommodation down there, and for 
the best class, — I mean my customers. What we want 
is an extension to the main building, and two or three 
cottages put up. I send down a builder to take hold of 
the job at once. He takes his sick wife with him; and 
you are to look after them as you would for one of us. 

“ I may run down there myself after the races, just 
to look after things; but I sha’n’t set up any game this 
season. 

“ Yours always, 

“John Oakhurst.” 

It was only the last sentence of this letter 
that provoked criticism. “ I can understand,” 
said Mr. Hamlin, a professional brother, to whom 
Mr. Oakhurst’s letter was shown, — “I can 
understand why J ack goes in heavy and builds ; 
for it’s a sure spec, and is bound to be a mighty 
soft thing in time, if he comes here regularly. 
But why in blank he don’t set up a bank this 
season, and take the chance of getting some of 
the money back that he puts into circulation in 
building, is what gets me. I wonder now,” he 
\nused deeply, “ what is his little game. ’ 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


53 


The season had been a prosperous one to Mr, 
Oakhurst, and proportionally disastrous to sev- 
eral members of the legislature, judges, colo- 
nels, and others who had enjoyed but briefly the 
pleasure of Mr. Oakhurst’s midnight society. 
And yet Sacramento had become very dull to 
him. He had lately formed a habit of early 
morning walks, so unusual and startling to his 
friends, both male and female, as to occasion 
the intensest curiosity. Two or three of the 
latter set spies upon his track ; but the inquisi- 
tion resulted only in the discovery that Mr. 
Oakhurst walked to the Plaza, sat down upon 
one particular bench for a few moments, and 
then returned without seeing anybody ; and the 
theory that there was a woman in the case was 
abandoned. A few superstitious gentlemen of 
his own profession believed that he did it for 
“luck.” Some others, more practical, declared 
that he went out to “ study points.” 

After the races at Marysville, Mr. Oakhurst 
went to San Francisco; from that place he 
returned to Marysville, but a few days after was 
seen at San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Oakland. 
Those who met him declared that his manner 
was restless and feverish, and quite unlike his 
ordinary calmness and phlegm. Col. Starbottle 
pointed out the fact, that at San Francisco, at 
the club, Jack had declined to deal. “Hand 


54 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


shaky, sir; depend upon it. Don’t stimulate 
enough — blank him ! ” 

From San Jos6 he started to go to Oregon by 
land with a rather expensive outfit of horses 
and camp equipage ; but, on reaching Stockton, 
he suddenly diverged, and four hours later 
found him with a single horse entering the 
canon of the San Isabel Warm Sulphur Springs. 

It was a pretty triangular valley lying at the 
foot of three sloping mountains, dark with pines, 
and fantastic with madrono and manzanita. 
Nestling against the mountain-side, the strag- 
gling buildings and long piazza of the hotel 
glittered through the leaves, and here and there 
shone a white toy-like cottage. Mr. Oakhurst 
was not an admirer of Nature ; but he felt some- 
• hing of the same novel satisfaction in the view, 
taat he experienced in his first morning walk in 
Sacramento. And now carriages began to pass 
him on the road filled with gayly-dressed women ; 
and the cold California outlines of the’ land- 
scape began to take upon themselves somewhat 
of a human warmth and color. And then the 
long hotel piazza came in view, efflorescent 
with the full-toiletted fair. Mr. Oakhurst, a 
good rider after the California fashion, did not 
check his speed as he approached his destina- 
tion, but charged the hotel at a gallop, threw 
his horse on his haunches within a foot of the 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


65 


piazza, and then quietly emerged from the 
cloud of dust that veiled his dismounting. 

Whatever feverish excitement might have 
raged within, all his habitual calm returned as 
he stepped upon the piazza. With the instinct 
of long habit, he turned and faced the battery 
of eyes with the same cold indifference with 
which he had for years encountered the half- 
hidden sneers of men and the half-frightened 
admiration of women. Only one person stepped 
forward to welcome him. Oddly enough, it 
was Dick Hamilton, perhaps the only one 
present, who by birth, education, and posi- 
tion, might have satisfied the most fastidious 
social critic. Happily for Mr. Oakhurst’s rep- 
utation, he was also a very rich banker and 
social leader. “ Do you know who that is 
you spoke to ? ” asked young Parker with 
an alarmed expression. “Yes,” replied Ham- 
ilton with characteristic effrontery. “ The 
man you lost a thousand dollars to last we-ek. 
I only know him socially .” “ But isn’t he a 

gambler?” queried the youngest Miss Smith. 
‘ He is,” replied Hamilton; “but I wish, my 
dear young lady, that we all played as open and 
lnnest a game as our friend yonder, and were 
as willing as he is to abide by its fortunes.” 

But Mr. Oakhurst was happily out of hear- 
3'g of this colloquy, and was even then loun- 


56 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


ging listlessly yet watchfully along the upper 
hall. Suddenly he heard a light footstep 
behind him, and then his name called in a fa* 
miliar voice that drew the blood quickly to his 
heart. He turned, and she stood before him. 

But how transformed ! If I have hesitated 
to describe the hollow-eyed cripple, the 
quaintly-dressed artisan’s wife, a few pages ago, 
what shall I do with this graceful, sJiapely, 
elegantly-attired gentlewoman into whom she 
has been merged within these two months ? In 
good faith she was very pretty. You and I, my 
dear madam, would have been quick to see 
that those charming dimples were misplaced for 
true beauty, and too fixed in their quality for 
honest mirthfulness ; that the delicate lines 
around these aquiline nostrils were cruel and 
selfish ; that the sweet virginal surprise of these 
lovely eyes were as apt to be opened on her 
plate as upon the gallant speeches of her dinner 
partner ; that her sympathetic color came and 
went more with her own spirits than yours. 
But you and I are not in love with her, dear 
madam, and Mr. Oakhurst is. And, even in the 
folds of her Parisian gown, I am afraid this 
poor fellow saw the same subtle strokes of 
purity that he had seen in her homespun robe. 
And then there was the delightful revelation 
that she could walk, and that she had deal 


MR. JOHN OAKHIIRST. 


57 


little feet of her own in the tiniest slippers of 
her French shoemaker, with such preposterous 
bine hows, and Chappell’s own stamp — Rue de 
something or other, Paris — on the narrow sole. 

He ran toward her with a heightened color 
and outstretched hands. But she whipped her 
own behind her, glanced rapidly up and down 
the long hall, and stood looking at him with a 
half-audacious, half-mischievous admiration, in 
utter contrast to her old reserve. 

“ I’ve a great mind not to shake hands with 
you at all. You passed me just now on the 
piazza without speaking; and I ran after you, as 
I suppose many another poor woman has done.” 

Mr. Oakhurst stammered that she was so 
changed. 

“ The more reason why you should know me. 
Who changed me ? You. You have re-created 
me. You found a helpless, crippled, sick, 
poverty-stricken woman, with one dress to her 
back, and that her own make, and you gave her* 
life, health, strength, and fortune. You did; 
and you know it, sir. How do you like your 
work?” She caught the side-seams of her 
gown in either hand, and dropped him a playful 
courtesy. Then, with a sudden, relenting 
gesture, she gave him both her hands. 

Outrageous as this speech was, and unfemb 
uine as I trust every fair reader will deem it, 


58 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


I fear it pleased Mr. Oakhurst. Not but that 
he was accustomed to a certain frank female 
admiration; but then it was of the coulisse , 
and not of the cloister, with which he always 
persisted in associating Mrs. Decker. To be 
addressed in this way by an invalid Puritan, a 
sick saint with the austerity of suffering still 
clothing her, a woman who had a Bible on the 
dressing-table, who went to church three times 
a day, and was devoted to her husband, com 
pletely bowled him over. He still held her 
hands as she went on, — 

“ Why didn’t you come before ? What were 
you doing in Marysville, in San Jos6, in Oak- 
land? You see I have followed you. I saw 
you as you came down the canon, and knew 
you at once. I saw your letter to Joseph, and 
knew you were coming. Why didn’t you write 
to me ? You will some time ! — Good-evening, 
Mr. Hamilton.” 

' She had withdrawn her hands, but not until 
Hamilton, ascending the staircase, was nearly 
abreast of them. He raised his hat to her 
with well-bred composure, nodded familiarly to 
Oakhurst, and passed on. When he had gone, 
Mrs. Decker lifted her eyes to Mr. Oakhurst 
• 4 Some day I shall ask a great fa\or of you.” 

Mr. Oakhurst begged that it should be now 
“No, not until you know me better. Then, 
^ome day, I shall want you to — kill that man!’ 


MR. JOHN OAKHTTRST. 


59 


She laughed such a pleasant little ringing 
laugh, such a display of dimples, — albeit a little 
fixed in the corners of her mouth, — such an 
innocent light in her brown eyes, and such a 
lovely color in her cheeks’, that Mr. Oakhurst 
(who seldom laughed) was fain to laugh too. 
It was as if a lamb had proposed to a fox a 
foray into a neighboring sheepfold. 

A few evenings after this, Mrs. Decker arose 
from a charmed circle of her admirers on the 
hotel piazza, excused herself for a few moments, 
laughingly declined an escort, and ran over to 
her little cottage — one of her husband’s crea- 
tion — across the road. Perhaps from the 
sudden and unwonted exercise in her still con- 
valescent state, she breathed hurriedly and 
feverishly as she entered her boudoir, and once 
or twice placed her hand upon her breast. She 
was startled on turning up the light to find her 
husband lying on the sofa. 

“ You look hot and excited, Elsie love,” said 
Mr. Decker. “ You ain’t took worse, are you?” 

Mrs Decker’s face had paled, but now flushed 
again. “No,” she said; “only a little pain 
here,” as she again placed her hand upon her 
corsage. 

“Can I do any thing for you?” said Mr. 
Desker, rising with affectionate concern. 

“ Run over to the hotel and get me some 
brandy, quick I ” 


60 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


Mr. Decker ran. Mrs Decker closed and 
bolted the door, and then, putting her hand to 
her bosom, drew out the pain. It was folded 
foursquare, and was, I grieve to say, in Mr. 
Oakhurst’s handwriting. 

She devoured it with burning eyes and 
cheeks until there came a step upon the porch ; 
then she hurriedly replaced it in her bosom, 
and unbolted the door. Her husband entered. 
She raised the spirits to her lips, and declared 
herself better. 

“ Are you going over there again to-night?” 
asked Mr. Decker submissively. 

“ No,” said Mrs. Decker, with her eyes fixed 
dreamily on the floor. 

“ I wouldn’t if I was you,” said Mr. Decker 
with a sigh of relief. After a pause, he took a 
seat on the sofa, and, drawing his wife to his 
side, said, “ Do you know what I was thinking 
of when you came in, Elsie?” Mrs. Decker 
ran her fingers through his stiff black hair, and 
couldn’t imagine. 

“ I was thinking of old times, Elsie : 1 was 
thinking of the days when I built that kerridge 
for you, Elsie, — when I used to take you out to 
ride, and was both hoss and driver. We was 
poor then, and you was sick, Elsie ; but we was 
happy. We’ve got money now, and a house „ 
*nd you’re quite another woman. I may say, 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


61 


dear, that you’re a new woman. And that’s 
where the trouble comes in. I could build you 
a kerridge, Elsie ; I could build you a house, 
Elsie — but there I stopped. I couldn’t build 
up you. You’re strong and pretty, Elsie, and 
fresh and new. But somehow, Elsie, you aiu’t 
no work of mine ! ” 

He paused. With one hand laid gently on 
his forehead, and the other pressed upon her 
bosom, as if to feel certain of the presence of her 
pain, she said sweetly and soothingly, — 

“ But it was your work, dear.” 

Mr. Decker shook his head sorrowfully. “ No, 
Elsie, not mine. I had the chance to do it 
once, and I let it go. It’s done now — but not 
by me.” 

Mrs. Decker raised her surprised, innocent 
eyes to his. He kissed her tenderly, and then 
went on in a more cheerful voice, — 

“ That ain’t all I was thinking of, Elsie. I 
was thinking that maybe you give too much of 
your company to that Mr. Hamilton. Not that 
there’s any wrong in it, to you or him ; but it 
might make people talk. You’re the only one 
here, Elsie,” said the master-carpenter, looking 
fondly at his wife, “who isn’t talked about, 
whose work ain’t inspected or condemned.” 

Mrs. Decker was glad he had spoken about it. 
She had thought so too. But she could not well 


62 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


be uncivil to Mr. Hamilton, who was a fine gen 
tleman, without making a powerful enemy. 
“And he’s always treated me as if I was a born 
lady in his own circle,” added the little woman, 
with a certain pride that made her husband 
fondly smile. “ But I have thought of a plan. 
He will not stay here if I should go away. If, 
for instance, I went to San Francisco to visit 
ma for a few days, he would be gone before I 
should return.” 

Mr. Decker was delighted. “ By all means,” 
he said, “go to-morrow. Jack Oakhurst is 
going down ; and I’ll put you in his charge.” 

Mrs. Decker did not think it was prudent. 
“Mr. Oakhurst is our friend, Joseph; but you 
know his reputation.” In fact, she did not 
know that she ought to go now, knowing that 
he was going the same day ; but, with a kiss, Mr. 
Decker overcame her scruples. She yielded 
gracefully. Few women, in fact, knew how to 
give up a point as charmingly as she. 

She staid a week in San Francisco. When 
she returned, she was a trifle thinner and paler 
than she had been. This she explained as the 
result of perhaps too active exercise and excite- 
ment. “ I was out of doors nearly all the time., 
as ma will tell you,” she said to her husband, 
“ and always alone. I am getting quite inde 
pendent now,” she added gayly. “ I don’t want 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


63 


any escort. I believe, Joey dear, I could get 
along even without you, I’m so brave ! ” 

But her visit, apparently, had not been pro 
ductive of her impelling design. Mr. Hamilton 
had not gone, but had remained, and called upon 
them that very evening. “I’ve thought of a 
plan, Joey dear,” said Mrs. Decker, when he had 
departed. “ Poor Mr. Oakhurst has a miserable 
room at the hotel. Suppose you ask him, when 
he returns from San Francisco, to stop with us. 
He can have our spare-room. I don’t think,” 
she added archly, “ that Mr. Hamilton will call 
often.” Her husband laughed, intimated that 
she was a little coquette, pinched her cheek, and 
complied. “ The queer thing about a woman,” 
he said afterward confidentially to Mr. Oak- 
hurst, “ is, that, without having any plan of her 
own, she’ll take anybody’s, and build a house 
on it entirely different to suit herself. And 
dern my skin if you’ll be able to say whether or 
not you didn’t give the scale and measurements 
yourself! That’s what gets me ! ” 

The next week Mr. Oakhurst was installed in 
the Deckers’ cottage. The business relations of 
her husband and himself were known to all, and 
her own reputation was above suspicion. In- 
deed, few women were more popular. She was 
aomestic, she was prudent, she was pious. In a 
country of great feminine freedom and latitude, 


84 


MR JOHN OAKHURST. 


she never rode or walked with anybody but her 
husband. In an epoch of slang and ambiguous 
expression, she was always precise and formal 
in her speech. In the midst of a fashion of os- 
tentatious decoration, she never wore a diamond, 
nor a single valuable jewel. She never per- 
mitted an indecorum in public. She never coun- 
tenanced the familiarities of California society. 
She declaimed against the prevailing tone of 
infidelity and scepticism in religion. Few peo- 
ple who were present will ever forget the dig- 
nified yet stately manner with which she 
rebuked Mr. Hamilton in the public parlor for 
entering upon the discussion of a work on ma- 
terialism, lately published; and some among 
them, also, will not forget the expression of 
amused surprise on Mr. Hamilton’s face, that 
gradually changed to sardonic gravity, as he 
courteously waived his point ; certainly not Mr. 
Oakhurst, who, from that moment, began to be 
uneasily impatient of his friend, and even — if 
such a term could be applied to any moral quali- 
ty in Mr. Oakhurst — to fear him. 

For during this time Mr. Oakhurst had begun 
to show symptoms of a change in his usual 
habits. He was seldom, if ever, seen in his old 
haunts, in a bar-room, or with his old associates. 
Pink and white notes, in distracted handwriting, 
accumulated on the dressing-table in his rooms 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


65 


.it Sacramento. It was given out in Sail Fran- 
cisco that he had some organic disease of the 
heart, for which his physician had prescribed 
perfect rest. He read more ; he took long walks ; 
he sold his fast horses ; he went to church. 

I have a very vivid recollection of his first 
appearance there. He did not accompany the 
Deckers, nor did he go into their pew, hut came 
in as the service commenced, and took a seat 
quietly in one of the hack-pews. By some mys- 
terious instinct, his presence became presently 
known to the congregation, some of whom so far 
forgot themselves, in their curiosity, as to face 
around, and apparently address their responses 
to him. Before the service was over, it was 
pretty well understood that “ miserable sinners ” 
meant Mr. Oakhurst. Nor did this mysterious 
influence fail to affect the officiating clergyman, 
who introduced an allusion to Mr. Oakhurst’s 
calling and habits in a sermon on the architec- 
ture of Solomon’s temple, and in a manner so 
pointed, and yet labored, as to cause the 
youngest of us to flame with indignation. Hap- 
pily, however, it was lost upon Jack : I do not 
think he even heard it. His handsome, colorless 
face, albeit a trifle worn and thoughtful, was 
inscrutable. Only once, during the singing of a 
hymn, at a certain note in the contralto’s voice, 
there crept into his dark eyes a look of wistful 


66 


MR. JOHN OAKHURS1. 


tenderness, so yearning and yet so hopeless, tlm* 
those who were watching him felt their own 
glisten. Yet I retain a very vivid remembrance 
of his standing up to receive the benediction, 
with the suggestion, in his manner and tightly- 
buttoned coat, of taking the fire of his adver- 
sary at ten paces. After church, he disappeared 
as quietly as he had entered, and fortunately 
escaped hearing the comments on his rash act. 
His appearance was generally considered as an 
impertinence, attributable only to some wanton 
fancy, or possibly a bet. One or two thought 
that the sexton was exceedingly remiss in not 
turning him out after discovering who he was ; 
and a prominent pew-holder remarked, that if he 
couldn’t take his wife and daughters to that 
church, without exposing them to such an influ- 
ence, he would try to find some church where 
he could. Another traced Mr. Oakhurst’s pres- 
ence to certain Broad Church radical tendencies, 
which he regretted to say he had lately noted 
in their pastor. Deacon Sawyer, whose deli- 
cately-organized, sickly wife had already borne 
him eleven children, and died in an ambitious 
attempt to complete the dozen, avowed that the 
presence of a person of Mr. Oakhurst’s various 
and indiscriminate gallantries was an insult to 
the memory of the deceased, that, as a man, he 
could not brook. 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


67 


It was about this time that Mr. Oakhurst,. 
contrasting himself with a conventional world 
in which he had hitherto rarely mingled, became 
aware that there was something in his face, 
figure, and carriage quite unlike other men, — 
something, that, if it did not betray his former 
career, at least showed an individuality and 
originality that was suspicious. In this belief, 
he shaved off his long, silken mustache, and 
religiously brushed out his clustering curls every 
morning. He even went so far as to affect a 
negligence of dress, and hid his small, slim, 
arched feet in the largest and heaviest walking- 
shoes. There is a story told that he went to his 
tailor in Sacramento, and asked him to make 
him a suit of clothes like everybody else. The 
tailor, familiar with Mr. Oakhurst’s fastidious- 
ness, did not know what he meant. “ I mean/’ 
said Mr. Oakhurst savagely, “ something respect- 
able , — something that doesn’t exactly fit me, 
you know.” But, however Mr. Oakhurst might 
hide his shapely limbs in homespun and home- 
made garments, there was something in his car- 
riage,* something in the pose of his beautiful 
head, something in the strong and fine manli- 
ness of his presence, something in the perfect 
and utter discipline and control of his muscles, 
something in the high repose of his nature, — - a 
repose not so much a matter, of intellectual rul- 


68 


MR. JOHN OAKHTJRST. 


ing as of his very nature, — that, go where he 
would, and with whom, he was always a notable 
man in ten thousand. Perhaps this was never 
so clearly intimated to Mr. Oakhurst, as when, 
emboldened by Mr. Hamilton’s advice and as* 
sistance, and his own predilections, he became a 
San-Francisco broker. Even before objection 
was made to his presence in the Board, — the ob- 
jection, I remember, was urged very eloquently 
by Watt Sanders, who was supposed to be the 
inventor of the “freezing-out” system of dis- 
posing of poor stockholders, and who also 
enjoyed the reputation of having been the im- 
pelling cause of Briggs of Tuolumne’s ruin and 
suicide, — even before this formal protest of 
respectability against lawlessness, the aquiline 
suggestions of Mr. Oakhurst’s mien and counte- 
nance, not only prematurely fluttered the 
pigeons, but absolutely occasioned much uneasi- 
ness among the fish-hawks who circled below 
him with their booty. “ Dash me ! but he’s as 
likely to go after us as anybody,” said Joe 
Fielding. 

It wanted but a few days before the close of 
the brief summer season at San Isabel Warm 
Springs. Already there had been some migra- 
tion of the more fashionable ; and there was an 
uncomfortable suggestion of dregs and lees ir 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


69 


fche social life that remained. Mr. Oakhurst 
was moody. It was hinted that even the secure 
reputation of Mrs. Decker could no longer pro- 
tect her from the gossip which his presence 
excited. It is hut fair to her to say, that, during 
the last few weeks of this trying ordeal, she 
looked like a sweet, pale martyr, and conducted 
herself toward her traducers with the gentle, 
forgiving manner of one who relied not upon 
the idle homage of the crowd, hut upon the 
security of a principle that was dearer than 
popular favor. “They talk about myself and 
Mr. Oakhurst, my dear,” she said to a friend ; 
“ hut heaven and my husband can best answer 
their calumny. It never shall be said that my 
husband ever turned his back upon a friend in 
the moment of his adversity, because the posi- 
tion was changed, — because his friend was poor, 
and he was rich.” This was the first intimation 
to the public that Jack had lost money, although 
it was known generally that the Deckers had 
lately bought some valuable property in San 
Francisco. 

A few evenings after this, an incident occurred 
which seemed to unpleasantly discord with the 
general social harmony that had always existed 
at San Isabel. It was at dinner ; and Mr. Oak- 
hurst and Mr. Hamilton, who sat together at a 
separate table, were observed to rise in some 


70 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


agitation. When they reached the hall, by a 
common instinct they stepped into a little 
breakfast-room which was vacant, and closed 
the door. Then Mr. Hamilton turned with a 
half-amused, half-serious smile toward his friend, 
and said, — 

“If we are to quarrel, Jack Oakhurst, — you 
and I, — in the name of all that is ridiculous, 
don’t let it be about a ” — 

I do not know what was the epithet intended. 
It was either unspoken or lost ; for at that very 
instant Mr. Oakhurst raised a wineglass, and 
dashed its contents into Hamilton’s face. 

As they faced each other, the men seemed to 
have changed natures. Mr. Oakhurst was 
trembling with excitement, and the wineglass 
that he returned to the table shivered between 
his fingers. Mr. Hamilton stood there, grayish 
white, erect, and dripping. After a pause, he 
said coldly, — ■. 

“ So be it. But remember, our quarrel 
commences here. If I fall by your hand, you 
shall not use it to clear her character : if you 
fall by mine, you shall not be called a martyr. 
I am sorry it has come to this ; but amen, the 
sooner now, the better.” 

He turned proudly, dropped his lids over hia 
cold steel-blue eyes, as if slieatliing a rapier 
bowed, and passed coldly out. 


MR. JOHo.'f OAKHURST. 


71 


They met, twelve hours later, in a little hol- 
low two miles from the hotel, on the Stockton 
road. As Mr. Oakhurst received his pistol 
from Col. Starbottle’s hands, he said to him in a 
low voice, “ Whatever turns up or down, I shall 
not return to the hotel. You will find some 
directions in my room. Go there ” — But 
his voice suddenly faltered, and he turned his 
glistening eyes away, to his second’s intense as- 
tonishment. “ I’ve been out a dozen times with 
Jack Oakhurst,” said Col. Starbottle afterward, 
“ and I never saw him anyways cut before. 
Blank me if I didn’t think he was losing his 
sand, till he walked to position.” 

The two reports were almost simultaneous. 
Mr. Oakhurst’s right arm dropped suddenly to 
his side, and his pistol would have fallen from 
his paralyzed fingers ; but the discipline of 
trained nerve and muscle prevailed, and he kept 
his grasp until he had shifted it to the other 
hand, without changing his position. Then 
there was a silence that seemed interminable, a 
gathering of two or three dark figures where a 
smoke-curl still lazily floated, and then the hur 
ried, husky, panting voice of Col. Starbottle in 
his ear, “ He’s hit hard — through the lungs — 
you must run for it ! ” 

Jack turned his dark, questioning eyes upon 
his second, but did not seem to listen, — rather 


72 


MR. JOHN OAKHTJRST. 


Beeined to hear some other voice, remoter in 
the distance. He hesitated, and then made 
a step forward in the direction of the distant 
group. Then he paused again as the figures 
separated, and the surgeon came hastily toward 
him. 

“ He would like to speak with you a moment,” 
said the man. “ You have little time to lose, I 
know ; but,” he added in a lower voice, “ it is 
my duty to tell you he has still less.” 

A look of despair, so hopeless in its intensity, 
swept over Mr. Oakhurst’s usually impassive 
face, that the surgeon started. “ You are hit,” 
he said, glancing at Jack’s helpless arm. 

“ Nothing — a mere scratch,” said Jack has- 
tily. Then he added with a bitter laugh, “ I’m 
not in luck to-day. But come : we’ll see what 
he wants.” 

His long, feverish stride outstripped the sur- 
geon’s. ; and in another moment he stood where 
the dying man lay, — like most dying men, — 
the one calm, composed, central figure of an 
anxious group. Mr. Oakhurst’s face was less 
calm as he dropped on one knee beside him, and 
took his hand. “ I want to speak with this 
gentleman alone,” said Hamilton, with some- 
thing of his old imperious manner, as he turned 
to those about him. When they drew back, he 
’ooked up in Oakhurst’s face. 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


73 


“ IVe something to tell you, Jack.” 

His own face was white, but not so white as 
that which Mr. Oakhurst bent over him, — a face 
so ghastly, with haunting doubts, and a hopeless 
presentiment of coming evil, — a face so piteous 
in its infinite weariness and envy of death, that 
the dying man was touched, even in the languor 
of dissolution, with a pang of compassion ; and 
the cynical smile faded from his lips. 

“ Forgive me, Jack,” he whispered more 
feebly, “ for what I have to say. I don’t say it 
in anger, but only because it must be said. I 
could not do my duty to you, I could not die 
contented, until you knew it all. It’s a miserable 
business at best, all around. But it can’t be 
helped now. Only I ought to have fallen by 
Decker’s pistol, and not yours.” 

A flush like fire came into Jack’s cheek, and 
he would have risen ; but Hamilton held him 
fast. 

“ Listen ! In my pocket you will find two 
letters. Take them — there ! You will know 
the handwriting. But promise you will not 
read them until you are in a place of safety. 
Promise me.” 

Jack did not speak, but held the letters be- 
tween his fingers as if they had been burning 
uoals. 

“ Promise me,” said Hamilton faintly. 


74 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


“Why?” asked Oakhurst, dropping his 
friend’s hand coldly. 

“ Because,” said the dying man with a bittei 
smile, — “ because — when you have read them 
— you — will — go back — to capture — and 
death ! ” 

They were his last words. He pressed Jack's 
hand faintly. Then his grasp relaxed, and lie 
fell back a corpse. 

It was nearly ten o’clock at night, and Mrs. 
Decker reclined languidly upon the sofa with a 
novel in her hand, while her husband discussed 
the politics of the country in the bar-room of 
the hotel. It was a warm night ; and the French 
window looking out upon a little balcony was 
partly open. Suddenly she heard a foot upon 
the balcony, and she raised her eyes from the 
book with a slight start. The next moment the 
window was hurriedly thrust wide, and a man 
entered. 

Mrs. Decker rose to her feet with a little cry 
of alarm. 

“For Heaven’s sake, Jack, are you mad? 
He has only gone for a little while — he may 
return at any moment. Come an hour later, 
to-morrow, any time when I can get rid of 
him — but go, now, dear, at once.” 

Mr. Oakhurst walked toward the door, bolted 
it, and then faced her without a word. His face 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


75 


was haggard ; his coat-sleeve hung loosely over 
an arm that was bandaged and bloody. 

Nevertheless her voice did not falter as she 
turned again toward him. “ What has hap- 
pened, Jack. Why are you here ? ” 

He opened his coat, and threw two letters in 
her lap. 

“ To return your lover’s letters ; to kill you 
— a*nd then myself,” he said in a voice so low 
as to be almost inaudible. 

Among the many virtues of this admirable 
woman was invincible courage. She did not 
faint; she did not cry out; she sat quietly 
down again, folded her hands in her lap, and 
said calmly, — 

“ And why should you not ? ” 

Had she recoiled, had she shown any fear or 
contrition, had she essayed an explanation or 
apology, Mr. Oakhurst would have looked upon 
it as an evidence of guilt. But there is no 
quality that courage recognizes so quickly as 
courage. There is no condition that despera- 
tion bows before but desperation. And Mr. 
Oakkurst’s power of analysis was not so keen as 
to prevent him from confounding her courage 
with a moral quality. Even in his fury, he could 
cot help admiring this dauntless invalid. 

“Why should you not?” she repeated with 
ft smile. “ tfou gave me life, health, and happi- 


76 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


ness, Jack. You gave me your love. Why 
should you not take what you have given ? Go 
on. I am ready.” 

She held out her hands with that same infi- 
nite grace of yielding with which she had taken 
his own on the first day of their meeting at the 
hotel. Jack raised his head, looked at her for 
one wild moment, dropped upon his knees be- 
side her, and raised the folds of her dress td his 
feverish lips. But she was too clever not to 
instantly see her victory: she was too much 
of a woman, with all her cleverness, to refrain 
from pressing that victory home. At the same 
moment, as with the impulse of an outraged 
and wounded woman, she rose, and, with an im- 
perious gesture, pointed to the window. Mr. 
Oakhurst rose in his turn, cast one glance upon 
her, and without another word passed out of 
her presence forever. 

When he had gone, she closed the window 
jtnd bolted it, and, going to the chimney-piece, 
placed the letters, one by one, in the flame of 
the candle until they were consumed. I would 
not have the reader think, that, during this 
painful operation, she was unmoved. Her hand 
trembled, and — not being a brute — for some 
minutes (perhaps longer) she felt very badly, 
and the corners of her sensitive mouth were 
depressed. When her husband arrived, it was 


MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 


77 


with a genuine joy that she ran to him, and 
nestled against his broad breast with a feeling 
of security that thrilled the honest fellow to 
the core. 

“ But I’ve heard dreadful news to-night, 
Elsie,” said Mr. Decker, after a few endearments 
were exchanged. 

“ Don’t tell me any thing dreadful, dear: I’m 
not well to-night,” she pleaded sweetly. 

“ But it’s about Mr. Oakhurst and Hamilton.” 

“ Please ! ” Mr. Decker could not resist the 
petitionary grace of those white hands and that 
sensitive mouth, and took her to his arms. 
Suddenly he said, “ What’s that ? ” 

He was pointing to the bosom of her white 
dress. Where Mr. Oakhurst had touched her, 
there was a spot of blood. 

It was nothing : she had slightly cut her hand 
ii\ closing the window; it shut so hard! If 
Mr. Decker had remembered to close and bolt 
the shutter before he went out, he might have 
saved her this. There was such a genuine irri- 
tability and force in this remark, that Mr. 
Decker was quite overcome by remorse. But 
Mrs. Decker forgave him with that graciousness 
which I have before pointed out in these pages. 
And with the halo of that forgiveness and mari- 
tal confidence still lingering above the pair, with 
the reader’s permission we will leave them, and 
return to Mr. Oakhurst. 


78 


MB. JOHN OAKHURST. 


But not for two weeks. At the end of that 
time, he walked into his rooms in Sacramento, 
and in his old manner took his seat at the faro- 
table. 

“ How’s your arm, Jack ? ” asked an incau- 
tious player. 

There was a smile followed the question, 
which, however, ceased as Jack looked up 
quietly at the speaker. 

“It bothers my dealing a little; but I can 
shoot as well with my left.” 

The game was continued in that decorous 
silence which usually distinguished the table at 
which Mr. John Oakhurst presided. 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


A S I opened Hop Sing’s letter, there flut- 
tered to the ground a square strip of yel- 
low paper covered with hieroglyphics, which, at 
first glance, I innocently took to be the label 
from a pack of Chinese fire-crackers. But the 
same envelope also contained a smaller strip of 
rice-paper, with two Chinese characters traced 
in India ink, that I at once knew to be Hop 
Sing’s visiting-card. The whole, as afterwards 
literally translated, ran as follows : — 

“To the stranger the gates of my house are not 
closed : the rice-jar is on the left, and the 
sweetmeats on the right, as you enter. 

Two sayings of the Master : — 

Hospitality is the virtue of the son and the 
wisdom of the ancestor. 

The Superior man is light hearted after the 
crop-gathering : he makes a festival. 

When the stranger is in your melon-patch, ob- 
serve him not too closely : inattention is often 
the highest form of civility. 

Happiness, Peace, and Prosperity. 

Hop Sing.” 


79 


80 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


Admirable, certainly, as was this morality and 
proverbial wisdom, and although this last axiom 
was very characteristic of my friend Hop Sing, 
who was that most sombre of all humorists, a 
Chinese philosopher, I must confess, that, even 
after a very free translation, I was at a loss to 
make any immediate application of the message. 
Luckily I discovered a third enclosure in the 
shape of a little note in English, and Hop Sing’s 
own commercial hand. It ran thus : — 

“ The pleasure of your company is requested at No. — 
Sacramento Street, on Friday evening at eight o’clock. 
A cup of tea at nine, — sharp. 

“Hop Sing.” 

This explained all. It meant a visit to Hop 
Sing’s warehouse, the opening and exhibition of 
some rare Chinese novelties and curios , a chat 
in the back office, a cup of tea of a perfection 
unknown beyond these sacred precincts, cigars, 
and a visit to the Chinese theatre or temple. 
This was, in fact, the favorite programme of Hop 
Sing when he exercised his functions of hospi- 
tality as the chief factor or superintendent of 
the Ning Foo Company. 

At eight o’clock on Friday evening, I entered 
the warehouse of Hop Sing. There was that 
deliciously commingled mysterious foreign odor 
that I had so often noticed ; there was the old 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


81 


array of uncouth-looking objects, the long pro- 
cession of jars and crockery, the same singular 
blending of the grotesque and the mathemati- 
cally neat and exact, the same endless sugges- 
tions of frivolity and fragility, the same want 
of harmony in colors, that were each, in them- 
selves, beautiful and rare. Kites in the shape 
of enormous dragons and gigantic butterflies; 
kites so ingeniously arranged as to utter at inter- 
vals, when facing the wind, the cry of a hawk ; 
kites so large as to be beyond any boy’s power 
of restraint, — so large that you understood why 
kite-flying in China was an amusement for 
adults ; gods of china and bronze so gratuitously 
ugly as to be beyond any human interest or 
sympathy from their very impossibility ; jars of 
sweetmeats covered all over with moral senti- 
ments from Confucius; hats that looked like 
baskets, and baskets that looked like hats ; silks 
so light that I hesitate to record the incredible 
number of square yards that you might pass 
through the ring on your little finger, — these, 
and a great many other indescribable objects, 
were all familiar to me. I pushed my way 
through the dimly-lighted warehouse, until I 
reached the back office, or parlor, where I found 
Hop Sing waiting to receive me. 

Before I describe him, I want the average 
reader to discharge from his mind any idea of a 


82 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


Chinaman that he may have gathered from the 
pantomime. He did not wear beautifully scal- 
loped drawers fringed with little bells (I 
never met a Chinaman who did) ; he did not 
habitually carry his forefinger extended before 
him at right angles with his body ; nor did I 
ever hear him utter the mysterious sentence, 
“ Ching a ring a ring chaw ; ” nor dance under 
any provocation. He was, on the whole, a 
rather grave, decorous, handsome gentleman. 
His complexion, which extended all over his 
head, except where his long pig-tail grew, was 
like a very nice piece of glazed brown paper- 
muslin. His eyes were black and bright, and 
his eyelids set at an angle of fifteen degrees; 
his nose straight, and delicately formed; his 
mouth small; and his teeth white and clean. 
He wore a dark blue silk blouse; and in the 
streets, on cold days, a short jacket of astrachan 
fur. He wore, also, a pair of drawers of blue 
brocade gathered tightly over his calves and 
ankles, offering a general sort of suggestion, that 
he had forgotten his trousers that morning, but 
that, so gentlemanly were his manners, his 
friends had forborne to mention the fact to him. 
His manner was urbane, although quite serious. 
He spoke French and English fluently. In 
brief, I doubt if you could have found the equal 
of this Pagan shopkeeper among the Christian 
traders of San Francisco. 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


88 


There were a few others present, — a judge of 
the Federal Court, an editor, a high government 
official, and a prominent merchant. After we 
had drunk our tea, and tasted a few sweetmeats 
from a mysterious jar, that looked as if it might 
contain a preserved mouse among its other non- 
descript treasures, Hop Sing arose, and, gravely 
beckoning us to follow him, began to descend 
to the basement. When we got there, we were 
amazed at finding it brilliantly lighted, and that 
a number of chairs were arranged in a half- 
circle on the asphalt pavement. When he had 
courteously seated us, he said, — 

“ I have invited you to witness a performance 
which I can at least promise you no other for- 
eigners but yourselves have ever seen. Wang, 
the court-juggler, arrived here yesterday morn- 
ing. He has never given a performance outside 
of the palace before. I have asked him to enter- 
tain my friends this evening. He requires no 
theatre, stage accessories, or any confederate, — 
nothing more than you see here. Will you be 
pleased to examine the ground yourselves, gen- 
tlemen.” 

Of course we examined the premises. It was 
the ordinary basement or cellar of the San- 
Francisco storehouse, cemented to keep out the 
damp. We poked our sticks into the pavement, 
slid rapped on the walls, to satisfy our polite 


84 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


host — but for no other purpose. W e were quite 
content to be the victims of any clever decep- 
tion. For myself, I knew I was ready to be 
deluded to any extent, and, if I had been offered 
an explanation of what followed, I should have 
probably declined it. 

Although I am satisfied that Wang’s general 
performance was the first of that kind ever 
given on American soil, it has, probably, since 
become so familiar to many of my readers, that 
I shall not bore them with it here. He began 
by setting to flight, with the aid of his fan, the 
usual number of butterflies, made before our 
eyes of little bits of tissue-paper, and kept them 
in the air during the remainder of the perform- 
ance. I have a vivid recollection of the judge 
trying to catch one that had lit on his knee, and 
of its evading him with the pertinacity of a liv- 
ing insect. And, even at this time, Wang, still 
plying his fan, was taking chickens out of hats, 
making oranges disappear, pulling endless yards 
of silk from his sleeve, apparently filling the 
whole area of the basement with goods that 
appeared mysteriously from the ground, from 
his own sleeves, from nowhere ! He swallowed 
knives to the ruin of his digestion for years to 
ome ; he dislocated every limb of his body ; he 
reclined in the air, apparently upon nothing. 
But his crowning performance, which I have 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


85 


never yet seen repeated, was the most weird, 
mysteiious, and astounding. It is my apology 
for this long introduction, my sole excuse for 
writing this article, and the genesis of this 
veracious history. 

He cleared the ground of its encumbering 
articles for a space of about fifteen feet square, 
and then invited us all to walk forward, and 
again examine it. We did so gravely. There 
was nothing but the cemented pavement below 
to be seen or felt. He then asked for the loan 
of a handkerchief ; and, as I chanced to be near- 
est him, I offered mine. He took it, and spread 
it open upon the floor. Over this he spread a 
large square of silk, and over this, again, a large 
shawl nearly covering the space he had cleared. 
He then took a position at one of the points of 
this rectangle, and began a monotonous chant, 
rocking his body to and fro in time with the 
somewhat lugubrious air. 

We sat still and waited. Above the chant 
we could hear the striking of the city clocks, 
and the occasional rattle of a cart in the street 
overhead. The absolute watchfulness and ex- 
pectation, the dim, mysterious half-light of the 
cellar falling in a grewsome way upon the mis- 
shapen bulk of a Chinese deity in the back- 
ground, a faint smell of opium-smoke mingling 
with spice, and the dreadful uncertainty of what 


86 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


we were really waiting for, sent an uncomforta- 
ble thrill down our backs, and made us look at 
each other with a forced and unnatural smile. 
This feeling was heightened when Hop Sing 
slowly rose, and, without a word, pointed with 
his finger to the centre 'of the shawl. 

There was something beneath the shawl 
Surely — and something that was not there 
before; at first a mere suggestion in relief, a 
faint outline, but growing more and more dis- 
tinct and visible every moment. The chant 
still continued; the perspiration began to roll 
from the singer’s face; gradually the hidden 
object took upon itself a shape and bulk that 
raised the shawl in its centre some five or six 
inches. It was now unmistakably the outline 
of a small but perfect human figure, with 
extended arms and legs. One or two of us 
turned pale. There was a feeling of general 
uneasiness, until the editor broke the silence by 
a gibe, that, poor as it was, was received with 
spontaneous enthusiasm. Then the chant sud- 
denly ceased. Wang arose, and with a quick, 
dexterous movement, stripped both shawl and 
silk away, and discovered, sleeping peacefully 
upon my handkerchief, a tiny Chinese baby. 

The applause and uproar which followed this 
revelation ought to have satisfied Wang, eves 
if his audience was a small one: it was loua 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


87 


enough to awaken the baby; — a pretty little 
boy about a year old, looking like a Cupid cut 
out of sandal-wood. He was whisked away 
almost as mysteriously as he appeared. When 
Hop Sing returned my handkerchief to me with 
a bow, I asked if the juggler was the father of 
the baby. “No sabe ! ” said th6 imperturbable 
Hop Sing, taking refuge in that Spanish form 
of non-committalism so common in California. 

“ But does he have a new baby for every per- 
formance ? ” I asked. “ Perhaps : who knows ? ” 
— “But what will become of this one?” — 
“Whatever you choose, gentlemen,” replied 
Hop Sing with a courteous inclination. “ It was 
born here : you are its godfathers.” 

There were two characteristic peculiarities of 
any Californian assemblage in 1856, — it was 
quick to take a hint, and generous to the point 
of prodigality in its response to any charitable 
appeal. No matter how sordid or avaricious the 
individual, he could not resist the infection of 
sympathy. I doubled the points of my hand- 
kerchief into a bag, dropped a coin into it, and, 
without a word, passed it to the judge. He 
quietly added a twenty-dollar gold-piece, and 
passed it to the next. When it was returned to 
me, it contained over a hundred dollars. I 
knotted the money in the handkerchief, and 
gave it to Hop Sing. 


88 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


“ For the baby, from its godfathers.” 

“ But what name ? ” said the judge. There 
was a running fire of “ Erebus,” “ Nox,” “ Plu- 
tus,” “Terra Cotta,” “Antseus,” &c. Finally 
the question was referred to our host. 

“Why not keep his own name?” he said 
quietly, — “Wan Lee.” And he did. 

And thus was Wan Lee, on the night of 
Friday, the 5th of March, 1856, born into this 
veracious chronicle. 

The last form of “ The Northern Star ” for 
the 19th of July, 1865, — the only daily paper 
published in Klamath County, — had just gone 
* to press ; and at three, A.M., I was putting aside 
my proofs and manuscripts, preparatory to going 
home, when I discovered a letter lying under 
some sheets of paper, which I must have over- 
looked. The envelope was considerably soiled : 
it had no post-mark ; but I had no difficulty in 
recognizing the hand of my friend Hop Sing. I 
opened it hurriedly, and read as follows : — 

“ My dear Sir, — I do not know whether the bearer 
will suit you; but, unless the office of ‘ devil’ in your 
newspaper is a purely technical one, I think he has all 
the qualities required. He is very quick, active, and 
intelligent; understands English better than he speaks 
it; and makes up for any defect by his habits of observa- 
tion and imitation. You have only to show him how to 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


89 


do a thing once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an 
offence or a virtue. But you certainly know him already. 
You are one of his godfathers; for is he not Wan Lee, the 
reputed son of Wang the conjurer, to whose perform- 
ances I had the honor to introduce you? But perhaps 
you have forgotten it. 

“ I shall send him with a gang of coolies to Stockton, 
thence by express to your town. If you can use him 
there, you will do me a favor, and probably save his life, 
which is at present in great peril from the hands of the 
younger members of your Christian and highly-civilized 
race who attend the enlightened schools in San Francisco. 

“ He has acquired some singular habits and customs 
from his experience of Wang’s profession, which he fol- 
lowed for some years, — until he became too large to go 
in a hat, or be produced from his father’s sleeve. The 
money you left with me has been expended on his educa- 
tion. He has gone through the Tri-literal Classics, but, I 
think, without much benefit. He knows but little of 
Confucius, and absolutely nothing of Mencius. Owing 
to the negligence of his father, he associated, perhaps, 
too much with American children. 

“I should have answered your letter before, by post; 
but I thought that Wan Lee himself would be a better 
messenger for this. 

“ Yours respectfully, 

“ Hop Sing.” 

And this was the long-delayed answer to my 
letter to Hop Sing. But where was “ the bear- 
er ” ? How was the letter delivered ? I sum- 
moned hastily the foreman, printers, and office- 
boy, but without eliciting any thing. No one 


90 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


had seen the letter delivered, nor knew any 
thing of the bearer. A few days later, I had 
a visit from my laundry-man, Ah Ri. 

“You wantee debbil? All lightee: me 
catchee him.” 

He returned in a few moments with a bright- 
looking Chinese boy, about ten years old, with 
whose appearance and general intelligence I was 
so greatly impressed, that I engaged him on the 
spot. When the business was concluded, I 
asked his name. 

“Wan Lee,” said the boy. 

“ What ! Are you the boy sent out by Hop 
Sing? What the devil do you mean by not 
coming here before ? and how did you deliver 
that letter?” 

Wan Lee looked at me, and laughed. “ Me 
pitchee in top side window.” 

I did not understand. He looked for a mo- 
ment perplexed, and then, snatching the letter 
out of my hand, ran down the stairs. After a 
moment’s pause, to my great astonishment, the 
letter came flying in the window, circled twice 
around the room, and then dropped gently, like 
a bird upon my table. Before I had got over 
my surprise, Wan Lee re-appeared, smiled, looked 
at the letter and then at me, said, “ So, John,” 
aua then remained gravely silent. I said noth 
ing further ; but it was understood that this was 
his first official act. 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


91 


His next performance, I grieve to say, was not 
attended with equal success. One of our regular 
paper-carriers fell sick, and, at a pinch, Wan Lee 
was ordered to fill his place. To prevent mis- 
takes, he was shown over the route the previous 
evening, and supplied at about daylight with 
the usual number of subscribers’ copies. He 
returned, after an hour, in good spirits, and 
without the papers. He had delivered them all, 
he said. 

Unfortunately for Wan Lee, at about eight 
o’clock, indignant subscribers began to arrive at 
the office. They had received their copies ; but 
how ? In the form of hard-pressed cannon-balls, 
delivered by a single shot, and a mere tour de 
force , through the glass of bedroom-windows. 
They had received them full in the face, like a 
base ball, if they happened to be up and stir- 
ring ; they had received them in quarter-sheets, 
tucked in at separate windows ; they had found 
them in the chimney, pinned against the door, 
shot through attic-windows, delivered in long 
slips through convenient keyholes, stuffed into 
ventilators, and occupying the same can with 
the morning’s milk. One subscriber, who waited 
for some time at the office-door to have a per- 
sonal interview with Wan Lee (then comforta- 
bly locked in my bedroom), told me, with tears 
&f rage in his eyes, that he had been awakened 


92 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


at five o’clock by a most hideous yelling below 
his windows ; that, on rising in great agitation, 
he was startled by the sudden appearance of 
“ The Northern Star,” rolled hard, and bent into 
the form of a boomerang, or East-Indian club, 
that sailed into the window, described a number 
of fiendish circles in the room, knocked over the 
light, slapped the baby’s face, “ took ” him (the 
subscriber) “ in the jaw,” and then returned out 
of the window, and dropped helplessly in the 
area. During the rest of the day, wads and strips 
of soiled paper, purporting to be copies of “ The 
Northern Star” of that morning’s issue, were 
brought indignantly to the office. An admira- 
ble editorial on 44 The Resources of Humboldt 
County,” which I had constructed the evening 
before, and which, I had reason to believe, 
might have changed the whole balance of trade 
during the ensuing year, and left San Francisco 
bankrupt at her wharves, was in this way lost to 
the public. 

It was deemed advisable for the next three 
weeks to keep Wan Lee closely confined to the 
printing-office, and the purely mechanical part 
of the business. Here he developed a surprising 
quickness and adaptability, winning even the 
favor and good will of the printers and foreman, 
who at first looked upon his introduction into 
the secrets of their trade as fraught with the 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


98 


gravest political significance. He learned to set 
type readily and- neatly, his wonderful skill in 
manipulation aiding him in the mere mechanical 
act, and his ignorance of the language confining 
him simply to the mechanical effort, confirm- 
ing the printer’s axiom, that the printer who 
considers or follows the ideas of his copy makes 
a poor compositor. He would set up deliberate 
ly long diatribes against himself, composed by 
his fellow-printers, and hung on his hook as 
copy, and even such short sentences as “ Wan 
Lee is the devil’s own imp,” “Wan Lee is a 
Mongolian rascal,” and bring the proof to me 
with happiness beaming from every tooth, and 
satisfaction shining in his huckleberry eyes. 

It was not long, however, before he learned to 
retaliate on his mischievous persecutors. I re- 
member one instance in which his reprisal came 
very near involving me in a serious misunder- 
standing. Our foreman’s name was Webster ; 
and Wan Lee presently learned to know arid 
recognize the individual and combined letters of 
his name. It was during a political campaign ; 
and the eloquent and fiery Col. Starbottle of 
Siskyou had delivered an effective speech, 
which was reported especially for “ The North- 
ern Star.” In a very sublime peroration, Col. 
Starbottle had said, “In the language of the 
godlike Webster, I repeat ” — and here followed 


94 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


the quotation, which I have forgotten. Now, it 
chanced that Wan Lee, looking over the galley 
after it had been revised, saw the name of his 
chief persecutor, and, of course, imagined the 
quotation his. After the form was locked up, 
Wan Lee took advantage of Webster’s absence 
to remove the quotation, and substitute a thin 
piece of lead, of the same size as the type, en- 
graved with Chinese characters, making a sen- 
tence, which, I had reason to believe, was an 
utter and abject confession of the incapacity and 
offensiveness of the Webster family generally, 
and exceedingly eulogistic of Wan Lee himself 
personally. 

The next morning’s paper contained Col. 
Starbottle’s speech in full, in which it appeared 
that the “godlike” Webster had, on one occa- 
sion, uttered his thoughts in excellent but per- 
fectly enigmatical Chinese. The rage of Col. 
Starbottle knew no bounds. I have a vivid 
recollection of that admirable man walking into 
my office, and demanding a retraction of the 
statement. 

“ But my dear sir,” I asked, “ are you willing 
to deny, over your own signature, that Webster 
ever uttered such a sentence ? Dare you deny, 
that, with Mr. Webster’s well-known attain- 
ments, a knowledge of Chinese might not have 
been among the number ? Are you willing to 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


95 


submit a translation suitable to the capacity of 
our readers, and deny, upon your honor as a 
gentleman, that the late Mr. Webster ever 
uttered such a sentiment ? If you are, sir, I am 
willing to publish your denial.” 

The colonel was not, and left, highly indig- 
nant. 

Webster, the foreman, took it more coolly. 
Happily, he was unaware, that, for two days 
after, Chinamen from the laundries, from the 
gulches, from the kitchens, looked in the front 
office-door, with faces beaming with sardonic 
delight ; that three hundred extra copies of the 
“ Star ” were ordered for the wash-houses on the 
river. He only knew, that, during the day, Wan 
Lee occasionally went off into convulsive spasms, 
and that he was obliged to kick him into con- 
sciousness again. A week after the occurrence, 
I called Wan Lee into my office. 

“Wan,” I said gravely, “I should like you 
to give me, for my own personal satisfaction, a 
translation of that Chinese sentence which my 
gifted countryman, the late godlike Webster, 
uttered upon a public occasion.” Wan Lee 
Looked at me intently, and then the slightest 
possible twinkle crept into his black eyes. Then 
he replied with equal gravity, — 

“ Mishtel Webstel, he say, ‘ China boy makee 
me belly much foolee. China boy makee me 


96 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


heap sick.’ ” Which I have reason to think was 
true. 

But I fear I am giving but one side, and not 
the best, of Wan Lee’s character. As he im- 
parted it to me, his had been a hard life. He 
had known scarcely any childhood : he had no 
recollection of a father or mother. The conjurer 
Wang had brought him up. He had spent the 
first seven years of his life in appearing from 
baskets, in dropping out of hats, in climbing 
ladders, in putting his little limbs out of joint in 
posturing. He had lived in an atmosphere of 
trickery and deception. He had learned to look 
upon mankind as dupes of their senses : in fine, 
if he had thought at all, he would have been a 
sceptic ; if he had been a little older, he would 
have been a cynic ; if he had been older still, he 
would have been a philosopher. As it was, he 
was a little imp. A good-natured imp it was, 
too, — an imp whose moral nature had never 
been awakened, — an imp up for a holiday, and 
willing to try virtue as a diversion. I don’t know 
that he had any spiritual nature. He was very 
superstitious. He carried about with him a 
hideous little porcelain god, which he was in the 
habit of alternately reviling and propitiating. 
He was too intelligent for the commoner 
Chinese vices of stealing or gratuitous lying. 
Whatever discipline he practised was taught by 
his intellect. 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


97 


I am inclined to think that his feelings were 
not altogether nnimpressible, although it was 
almost impossible to extract an expression from 
him ; and I conscientiously believe he became 
attached to those that were good to him. 
What he might have become under more 
favorable conditions than the bondsman of an 
overworked, under-paid literary man, I don’t 
know: I only know that the scant, irregular, 
impulsive kindnesses that I showed him were 
gratefully received. He was very loyal and 
patient, two qualities rare in the average 
American servant. He was like Malvolio, “ sad 
and civil ” with me. Only once, and then under 
great provocation, do I remember of his exhib- 
iting any impatience. It was my habit, after 
leaving the office at night, to take him with me 
to my rooms, as the bearer of any supplemental 
or happy after-thought, in the editorial way, 
that might occur to me before the paper went 
to press. One night I had been scribbling away 
past the usual hour of dismissing Wan Lee, 
and had become quite oblivious of his presence 
in a chair near my door, when suddenly I 
became aware of a voice saying in plaintive 
accents, something that sounded like “Chy 
t Lee.” 

I faced around sternly. 

“ What did you say ? ” 


98 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


“ Me say, ‘ Chy Lee.’ ” 

“ Well ? ” I said impatiently. 

“Yon sabe, 4 How do, John?’” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You sabe, 4 So long, John ’ ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

44 Well, 4 Cby Lee ’ allee same ! ” 

I understood him quite plainly. It appealed 
that 44 Chy Lee ” was a form of 44 good-night,” 
and that Wan Lee was anxious to go home. 
But an instinct of mischief, which, I fear, I 
possessed in common with him, impelled me to 
act as if oblivious of the hint. I muttered 
something about not understanding him, and 
again bent over my work. In a few minutes I 
heard his wooden shoes pattering pathetically 
over the floor. I looked up. He was standing 
near the door. 

44 You no sabe, 4 Chy Lee ’? ” 

44 No,” I said sternly. 

44 You sabe muchee big foolee ! allee same ! ” 
And, with this audacity upon his lips, he fled 
The next morning, however, he was as meek 
and patient as before, and I did not recall his 
offence. As a probable peace-offering, he 
blacked all my boots, — a duty never required 
of him, — including a pair of buff deer-skin 
slippers and an immense pair of hoiseman’s 
jack-boots, on which he indulged his remorse 
for two hours. 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 99 

I have spoken of his honesty as being a 
quality of his intellect rather than his principle 
but I recall about this time two exceptions 
to the rule. I was anxious to get some fresh 
eggs as a change to the heavy diet of a mining- 
town; and, knowing that Wan Lee’s country- 
men were great poultry-raisers, I applied to him. 
He furnished me with them regularly every 
morning, but refused to take any pay, saying 
that the man did not sell them, — a remarkable 
instance of self-abnegation, as eggs were then 
worth half a dollar apiece. One morning 
my neighbor Forster dropped in upon me at 
breakfast, and took occasion to bewail his own 
ill fortune, as his hens had lately stopped 
laying, or wandered off in the bush. Wan Lee, 
who was present during our colloquy, preserved 
his characteristic sad taciturnity. When my 
neighbor had gone, he turned to me with a 
slight chuckle: “ Flostel’s hens — Wan Lee’s 
hens allee same ! ” His other offence was 
more serious and ambitious. It was a season 
of great irregularities in the mails, and Wan 
Lee had heard me deplore the delay in the 
delivery of my letters and newspapers. On 
Arriving at my office one day, I was amazed 
to find ray table covered with letters, evidently 
just from the post-office, but, unfortunately, not 
one addressed to me. I turned to Wan Lee, 

L. of C. '• 


100 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


who was surveying them with a calm satisfac- 
tion, and demanded an explanation. To my 
horror he pointed to an empty mail-bag in the 
corner, and said, “ Postman he say, c N a lettee, 
John; no lettee, John.’ Postman plentee lie! 
Postman no good. Me catchee lettee last 
night allee same ! ” Luckily it was still early : 
the mails had not been distributed. I had a 
hurried interview with the postmaster ; and 
Wan Lee’s bold attempt at robbing the United 
States mail was finally condoned by the pur- 
chase of a new mail-bag, and the whole affair 
thus kept a secret. 

If my liking for my little Pagan page had 
not been sufficient, my duty to Hop Sing was 
enough, to cause me to take Wan Lee with me 
when I returned to San Francisco after my two 
years’ experience with “ The Northern Star.” 
I do not think he contemplated the change 
with pleasure. I attributed his feelings to a 
nervous dread of crowded public streets (when 
he had to go across town for me on an errand, 
he always made a circuit of the outskirts), to 
his dislike for the discipline of the Chinese and 
English school to which I proposed to send 
him, to his fondness for the free, vagrant life of 
the mines, to sheer wilfulness. That it might 
have been a superstitious premonition did not 
occur to me until long after. 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


101 


Nevertheless it really seemed as if the oppor- 
tunity I had long looked for and confidently 
expected had come, — the opportunity of pla- 
cing Wan Lee under gently restraining influ- 
ences, of subjecting him to a life and experience 
that would draw out of him what good my 
superficial care and ill-regulated kindness could 
not reach. Wan Lee was placed at the school 
of a Chinese missionary, — an intelligent and 
kind-hearted clergyman, who had shown great 
interest in the boy, and who, better than all, 
had a wonderful faith in him. A home was 
found for him in the family of a widow, who 
had a bright and interesting daughter about 
two years younger than Wan Lee. It was this 
bright, cheery, innocent, and artless child that 
touched and reached a depth in the boy’s 
nature that hitherto had been unsuspected; 
that awakened a moral susceptibility which had 
lain for years insensible alike to the teachings 
of society, or the ethics of the theologian. 

These few brief months — bright with a 
promise that we never saw fulfilled — must have 
been happy ones to Wan Lee. He worshipped 
his little friend with something of the same 
superstition, but without any of the caprice, 
that he bestowed upon his porcelain Pagan god. 
It was his delight to walk behind her to school, 
carrying her books, — a service always fraught 


102 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


with danger to him from the little hands of his 
Caucasian Christian brothers. He made her the 
most marvellous toys; he would cut out of 
carrots and turnips the most astonishing roses 
and tulips; he made life-like chickens out of 
melon-seeds ; he constructed fans and kites, and 
was singularly proficient in the making of dolls’ 
paper dresses. On the other hand, she played 
and sang to him, taught him a thousand little 
prettinesses and refinements only known to girls, 
gave him a yellow ribbon for his pig-tail, as best 
suiting his complexion, read to him, showed him 
wherein he was original and valuable, took him 
to Sunday school with her, against the prece- 
dents of the school, and, small-woman-like, 
triumphed. I wish I could add here, that she 
effected his conversion, and made him give up 
his porcelain idol. But I am telling a true 
story ; and this little girl was quite content to fill 
him with her own Christian goodness, without 
letting him know that he was changed. So 
they got along very well together, — this little 
Christian girl with her shining cross hanging 
around her plump, white little neck ; and this 
dark little Pagan, with his hideous porcelain 
god hidden away in his blouse. 

There were two days of that eventful year 
which will long be remembered in San Fran 
cisco, — two days when a mob of her citizens 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


103 


set upon and killed unarmed, defenceless for- 
eigners because they were foreigners, and of 
another race, religion, and color, and worked 
for what wages they could get. There were 
some public men so timid, that, seeing this, 
they thought that the end of the world had 
come. There were some eminent statesmen, 
whose names I am ashamed to write here, 
who began to think that the passage in the 
Constitution which guarantees civil and reli- 
gious liberty to every citizen or foreigner was 
a mistake. But there were, also, some men 
who were not so easily frightened; and in 
twenty-four hours we had things so arranged, 
that the timid men could wring their hands in 
safety, and the eminent statesmen utter their 
doubts without hurting any body or any thing. 
And in the midst of this I got a note from Hop 
Sing, asking me to come to him immediately. 

I found his warehouse closed, and strongly 
guarded by the police against any possible 
attack of the rioters. Hop Sing admitted me 
through a barred grating with his usual imper- 
turbable calm, but, as it seemed to me, with 
more than his usual seriousness. Without a 
word, he took my hand, and led me to the rear 
of the room, and thence down stairs into the 
basement. It was dimly lighted ; but there was 
something lying on the flooi covered by a shawl 


104 


WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 


As I approached he drew the shawl away with 
a sudden gesture, and revealed Wan Lee, the 
Pagan, lying there dead. 

Dead, my reverend friends, dead, — stoned to 
death in the streets of San Francisco, in the 
year of grace 1869, by a mob of half-grown 
boys and Christian school-children ! 

As I put my hand reverently upon his breast, 
I felt something crumbling beneath his blouse. 
I looked inquiringly at Hop Sing. He put his 
hand between the folds of silk, and drew out 
something with the first bitter smile I had ever 
seen on the face of that Pagan gentleman. 

It was Wan Lee’s porcelain god, crushed by 
a stone from the hands of those Christian icono- 
clasts ! 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT 
HOME. 



THINK we all loved him. Even after he 


J- mismanaged the affairs of the Amity Ditch 
Company, we commiserated him, although most 
of us were stockholders, and lost heavily. I 
remember that the blacksmith went so far as 
to say that “ them chaps as put that responsi- 
bility on the old man oughter be lynched.” But 
the blacksmith was not a stockholder ; and the 
expression was looked upon as the excusable 
extravagance of a large, sympathizing nature, 
that, when combined with a powerful frame, 
was unworthy of notice. At least, that was 
the way they put it. Yet I think there was a 
general feeling of regret that this misfortune 
would interfere with the old man’s long-cher- 
ished plan of “ going home.” 

Indeed, for the last ten years he had been 
44 going home.” He was going home after a six- 
months’ sojourn at Monte Flat ; he was going 
home after the first rains ; he was going home 


105 


106 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


when the rains were over ; he was going home 
when he had cut the ' timber on Buckeye Hill, 
when there was pasture on Dow’s Flat, when he 
struck pay-dirt on Eureka Hill, when the Amity 
Company paid its first dividend, when the elec- 
tion was over, when he had received an answer 
from his wife. And so the years rolled by, 
the spring rains came and went, the woods of 
Buckeye Hill were level with the ground, the 
pasture on Dow’s Flat grew sear and dry, Eureka 
Hill yielded its pay-dirt and swamped its owner, 
the first dividends of the Amity Company were 
made from the assessments of stockholders, 
there were new county officers at Monte Flat, 
his wife’s answer had changed into a persistent 
question, and still old man Plunkett remained. 

It is only fair to say that he had made several 
distinct essays toward going. Five years before, 
he had bidden good-by to Monte Hill with 
much effusion and hand-shaking. But he never 
got any farther than the next town. Here 
he was induced to trade the sorrel colt he was 
riding for a bay mare, — a transaction that at 
once opened to his lively fancy a vista of vast 
and successful future speculation. A few days 
after, Abner Dean of Angel’s received a letter 
from him, stating that he was going to Visalia to 
buy horses. “ I am satisfied,” wrote Plunkett, 
with that elevated rhetoric for which his corre 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WEN1 HOME. 107 

spondence was remarkable, — “I am satisfied 
that we are at last developing the real resources 
of California. The world will yet look to Dow’s 
Flat as the great stock-raising centre. In view 
of the interests involved, I have deferred my 
departure for a month.” It was two before he 
again returned to us — penniless. Six months 
later, he was again enabled to start for the East, 
ern States ; and this time he got as far as San 
Francisco. I have before me a letter which I 
received a few days after his arrival, from which 
I venture to give an extract : “ You know, my 
dear boy, that I have always believed that gam 
bling, as it is absurdly called, is still in its in 
fancy in California. I have always maintained 
that a perfect system might be invented, by 
which the game of poker may be made to yield 
a certain percentage to the intelligent player. 
I am not at liberty at present to disclose the 
system ; but before leaving this city I intend to 
perfect it.” He seems to have done so, and 
returned to Monte Flat with two dollars and 
thirty-seven cents, the absolute remainder of 
his capital after such perfection. 

It was not until 1868 that he appeared to 
have finally succeeded in going home. He left 
us by the overland route, — a route which he 
declared would give great opportunity for the 
discovery of undeveloped resources. His last 


108 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


letter was dated Virginia City. He was absent 
three years. At the close of a very hot day in 
midsummer, he alighted from the Wingdam 
stage, with hair and beard powdered with dust 
and age. There was a certain shyness about his 
greeting, quite different from his usual frank 
volubility, that did not, however, impress us as 
any accession of character. For some days he 
was reserved regarding his recent visit, content- 
ing himself with asserting, with more or less 
aggressiveness, that he had “ always said he was 
going home, and now he had been there.” Later 
he grew more communicative, and spoke freely 
and critically of the manners and customs of 
New York and Boston, commented on the social 
changes in the years of his absence, and, I 
remember, was very hard upon what he deemed 
the follies incidental to a high state of civiliza- 
tion. Still later he darkly alluded to the moral 
laxity of the higher planes of Eastern society ; 
but it was not long before he completely tore 
away the veil, and revealed the naked wicked- 
ness of New York social life in a way I even 
now shudder to recall. Vinous intoxication, it 
appeared, was a common habit of the first ladies 
of the city. Immoralities which he scarcely 
dared name were daily practised by the refined 
of both sexes. Niggardliness and greed were the 
common vices of the rich. “I have always 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOJSIE. 10S 


asserted,” lie continued, 44 that corruption must 
exist where luxury and riches are rampant, 
and capital is not used to develop the natural 
resources of the country. Thank you — I will 
take mine without sugar.” It is possible tlia t 
some of these painful details crept into the local 
journals. I remember an editorial in “ The Monte 
Flat Monitor,” entitled “ The Effete East,” in 
which the fatal decadence of New York and 
New England was elaborately stated, and Cali- 
fornia offered as a means of natural salvation. 
44 Perhaps,” said 44 The Monitor,” 44 we might 
add that Calaveras County offers superior induce- 
ments to the Eastern visitor with capital.” 

Later he spoke of his family. The daughter 
he had left a child had grown into beautiful 
womanhood. The son was already taller and 
larger than his father ; and, in a playful trial of 
strength, 44 the young rascal,” added Plunkett, 
with a voice broken with paternal pride and 
humorous objurgation, had twice thrown his 
doting parent to the ground. But it was of his 
daughter he chiefly spoke. Perhaps emboldened 
by the evident interest which masculine Monte 
Flat held in feminine beauty, he expatiated at 
some length on her various charms and accom- 
plishments, and finally produced her photograph, 
— that of a very pretty girl, - — to their infinite 
peril. But his account of his first meeting with 


110 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


her was so peculiar, that I must fain give it 
after his own methods, which were, perhaps, 
some shades less precise and elegant than his? 
written style. 

44 You see, boys, it’s always been my opinion 
that a man oughter be able to tell his own flesh 
and blood by instinct. It’s ten years since I’d 
seen my Melindy ; and she was then only seven, 
and about so high. So, when I went to New 
York, what did I do ? Did I go straight to my 
house, and ask for my wife and daughter, like 
other folks ? No, sir ! I rigged myself up as a 
peddler, as a peddler, sir ; and I rung the bell. 
When the servant came to the door, I wanted 
— don’t you see? — to show the ladies some 
trinkets. Then there was a voice over the ban- 
ister says, 4 Don’t want any thing : send him 
away.’ — 4 Some nice laces, ma’am, smuggled,’ I 
says, looking up. 4 Get out, you wretch ! ’ says 
she. I knew the voice, boys : it was my wife, 
sure as a gun. Thar wasn’t any instinct thar. 
4 Maybe the young ladies want somethin’,’ I 
said. 4 Did you hear me ? ’ says she ; and with 
that she jumps forward, and I left. It’s ten 
years, boys, since I’ve seen the old woman ; but 
somehow, when she fetched that leap, I naterully 
left.” 

He had been standing beside the bar — his 
usual attitude — when he made this speech ; but 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. Ill 


at this point he half faced his auditors with a 
look that was very effective. Indeed, a few 
who had exhibited some signs of scepticism and 
lack of interest, at once assumed an appearance 
of intense gratification and curiosity as he 
went on, — 

“ Well, by hangin round there for a day or 
two, I found out at last it was to be Melindy’s 
birthday next week, and that she was goin’ to 
have a big party. I tell ye what, boys, it 
weren’t no slouch of a reception. The whole 
house was bloomin’ with flowers, and blazin’ 
with lights ; and there was no end of servants 
and plate and refreshments and fixin’s ” — 

“ Uncle Joe.” 

« WeH?” 

“ Where did they get the money ? ” 

Plunkett faced his interlocutor with a severe 
glance. “ I always said,” he replied slowly, 
“ that, when I went home, I’d send on ahead of 
me a draft for ten thousand dollars. I always 
said that, didn’t I? Eh? And I said I was 
goin’ home — and I’ve been home, haven’t I ? 
Well?” 

Either there was something irresistibly con 
elusive in this logic, or else the desire to hear 
the remainder of Plunkett’s story was stronger ; 
but there was no more interruption. His ready 
good-humor quickly returned, and, with a slight 
chuckle, he went on, — 


112 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


u I went to the biggest jewelry shop in town, 
and I bought a pair of diamond ear-rings, and 
put them in my pocket, and went to the house. 
‘ What name ? ’ says the chap who opened the 
door ; and he looked like a cross ’twixt a restau- 
rant waiter and a parson. 4 Skeesicks,’ said I. 
He takes me in ; and pretty soon my wife comes 
sailin’ into the parlor, and says, 4 Excuse me ; 
but I don’t think I recognize the name.’ She 
was mighty polite ; for I had on a red wig and 
side-whiskers. 4 A friend of your husband’s 
from California, ma’am, with a present for your 
daughter, Miss ,’ and I made as I had for- 

got the name. But all of a sudden a voice 
said, 4 That’s too thin ; ’ and in walked Melindy. 
4 It’s playin’ it rather low down, father, to 
pretend you don’t know your daughter’s name ; 
ain’t it, now ? How are you, old man ? ’ And 
with that she tears off my wig and whiskers, 
and throws her arms around my neck — instinct, 
sir, pure instinct ! ” 

Emboldened by the laughter which followed 
his description of the filial utterances of Melin- 
da, he again repeated her speech, with more or 
less elaboration, joining in with, and indeed 
often leading, the hilarity that accompani 3d it, 
and returning to it, with more or less inco- 
herency, several times during the evening. 

And so, at various times and at various 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 113 

places, but chiefly in bar-rooms, did this 
Ulysses of Monte Flat recount the story of 
his wanderings. There were several discrep- 
ancies in his statement; there was sometimes 
considerable prolixity of detail ; there was occa- 
sional change of character and scenery; there 
was once or twice an absolute change in the 
denotement: but always the fact of his having 
visited his wife and children remained. Of 
course, in a sceptical community like that of 
Monte Flat, — a community accustomed to great 
expectation and small realization, — a commu- 
nity wherein, to use the local dialect, “ they got 
the color, and struck hardpan,” more frequently 
than any other mining-camp, — in such a com- 
munity, the fullest credence was not given to 
old man Plunkett’s facts. There was only one 
exception to the general unbelief, — Henry York 
of Sandy Bar. It was he who was always an 
attentive listener; it was his scant purse that 
had often furnished Plunkett vith means to 
pursue his unprofitable speculations ; it was to 
him that the charms of Melinda were more fre- 
quently rehearsed ; it was he that had borrowed 
her photograph; and it was he that, sitting 
alone in his little cabin one night, kissed that 
ohotograph, until his honest, handsome face 
glowed again in the firelight. 

It was dusty in Monte Flat. The rnins of 


114 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


the long dry season were crumbling every- 
where : everywhere the dying summer had 
strewn its red ashes a foot deep, or exhaled 
its last breath in a red cloud above the troubled 
highways. The alders and cottonwoods, that 
marked the line of the water-courses, were 
grimy with dust, and looked as if they might 
have taken root in the open air. The gleaming 
stones of the parched water-courses themselves 
were as dry bones in the valley of death. The 
dusty sunset at times painted the flanks of the 
distant hills a dull, coppery hue : on other days, 
there was an odd, indefinable earthquake halo 
on the volcanic cones of the farther coast-spurs. 
Again an acrid, resinous smoke from the burning 
wood on Heavytree Hill smarted the eyes, and 
choked the free breath of Monte Flat; or a 
fierce wind, driving every thing, including the 
shrivelled summer, like a curled leaf before it, 
swept down the flanks of the Sierras, and 
chased the inhabitants to the doors of their 
cabins, and shook its red fist in at their win- 
dows. And on such a night as this, the dust 
having in some way choked the wheels of ma- 
terial progress in Monte Flat, most of the in- 
habitants were gathered listlessly in the gilded 
bar-room of the Moquelumne Hotel, spitting 
silently at the red-hot stove that tempered the 
mountain winds to the shorn lambs of Monte 
Flat, and waiting for the rain. 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 115 


Every method known to the Flat of beguiling 
the time until the advent of this long-looked- 
for phenomenon had been tried. It is true, the 
methods were not many, being limited chiefly 
to that form of popular facetiae known as prac- 
tical joking; and even this had assumed the 
seriousness of a business-pursuit. Tommy Roy, 
who had spent two hours in digging a ditch in 
front of his own door, into which a few friends 
casually dropped during the evening, looked 
ennuye and dissatisfied. The four prominent 
citizens, who, disguised . as foot-pads, had 
stopped the county treasurer on the Wingdam 
road, were jaded from their playful efforts 
next morning. The principal physician and 
lawyer of Monte Flat, who had entered into an 
unhallowed conspiracy to compel the sheriff 
of Calaveras and his posse to serve a writ of 
ejectment on a grizzly bear, feebly disguised 
under the name of one “Major Ursus,” who 
haunted the groves of Heavytree Hill, wore 
an expression of resigned weariness. Even the 
editor of “ The Monte Flat Monitor,” who had 
that morning written a glowing account of a 
battle with the Wipneck Indians, for the bene- 
fit of Eastern readers, — even he looked grave 
and worn. When, at last, Abner Dean of An- 
gel’s, who had been on a visit to San Francisco, 
talked into the room, he was, of course, vie- 


116 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


timized in the usual way by one or two appar« 
ently honest questions, which ended in his 
answering them, and then falling into the trap 
of asking another, to his utter and complete 
shame and mortification ; but that was all. No- 
body laughed; and Abner, although a victim, 
did not lose his good-humor. He turned quietly 
on his tormentors, and said, — 

“ I’ve got something better than that — you 
know old man Plunkett ? ” 

Everybody simultaneously spat at the stove, 
and nodded his head. 

“ You know he went home three years ago ? ” 
Two or three changed the position of their legs 
from the backs of different chairs ; and one man 
said, “ Yes.” 

“ Had a good time, home ? ” 

Everybody looked cautiously at the man who 
had said, “ Yes ; ” and he, accepting the respon- 
sibility with a faint-hearted smile, said, “ Yes,” 
again, and breathed hard. “ Saw his wife and 
child — purty gal?” said Abner cautiously. 
“Yes,” answered the man doggedly. “Saw 
her photograph, perhaps?” continued Abner 
Dean quietly. 

The man looked hopelessly around for sup- 
port Two or three, who had been sitting near 
him, and evidently encouraging him with a look 
Dt interest, now shamelessly abandoned him 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 117 


and looked another way. Henry York flushed 
a little, and veiled his gray eyes. The man 
hesitated, and then with a sickly smile, that 
was intended to convey the fact that he was 
perfectly aware of the object of this question- 
ing, and was only humoring it from abstract 
good feeling, returned, “ Yes,” again. 

“Sent home — let’s see — ten thousand dol- 
lars, wasn’t it ? ” Abner Dean went on “ Yes,” 
reiterated the man with the same smile. 

“Well, I thought so,” said Abner quietly. 
“ But the fact is, you see, that he never went 
home at all — nary time.” 

Everybody stared at Abner in genuine sur- 
prise and interest, as, with provoking calmness 
and a half-lazy manner, he went on, — 

“ You see, thar was a man down in ’Frisco as 
knowed him, and saw him in Sonora during the 
whole of that three years. He was herding 
sheep, or tending cattle, or spekilating all that 
time, and hadn’t a red cent. Well it ’mounts 
to this, — that ’ar Plunkett ain’t been east of 
the Rocky Mountains since ’49.” 

The laugh which Abner Dean had the right 
to confidently expect came ; but it was bitter 
and sardonic. I think indignation was appar- 
ent in the minds of his hearers. It was felt, 
for the first time, that there was a limit to prac- 
tical joking. A deception carried on for a yean 


118 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


compromising the sagacity of Monte Flat, was 
deserving the severest reprobation. Of course, 
nobody had believed Plunkett; but then the 
supposition that it might be believed in adja- 
cent camps that they had believed him was gall 
ana bitterness. The lawyer thought that an 
indictment for obtaining money under false pre- 
tences might be found. The physician had long 
suspected him of insanity, and was not certain 
but that he ought to be confined. The four 
prominent merchants thought that the business- 
interests of Monte Flat demanded that some- 
thing should be done. In the midst of an 
excited and angry discussion, the door slowly 
opened, and old man Plunkett staggered into 
the room. 

He had changed pitifully in the last six 
months. His hair was a dusty, yellowish gray, 
like the chemisal on the flanks of Heavytree 
Hill ; his face was waxen white, and blue and 
puffy under the eyes; his clothes were soiled 
and shabby, streaked in front with the stains 
of hurriedly eaten luncheons, and fluffy behind 
with the wool and hair of hurriedly-extem- 
porized couches. In obedience to that odd 
law, that, the more seedy and soiled a man’s 
garments become, the less does he seem inclined 
to part with them, even during that portion 
s>£ the twenty-four hours when they are 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 119 


deemed less essential, Plunkett’s clothes had 
gradually taken on the appearance of a kind 
of a bark, or an outgrowth from within, for 
which their possessor was not entirely responsi- 
ble. Howbeit, as he entered the room, he 
attempted to button his coat over a dirty 
shirt, and passed his fingers, after the manner 
of some animal, over his cracker-strewn beard, 
in recognition of a cleanly public sentiment. 
But, even as he did so, the weak smile faded 
from his lips ; and his hand, after fumbling aim- 
lessly around a button, dropped helplessly at 
his side. For as he leaned his back against the 
bar, and faced the group, he, for the first time, 
became aware that every eye but one was fixed 
upon him. His quick, nervous apprehension at 
once leaped to the truth. His miserable secret 
was out, and abroad in the very air about him. 
As a last resort, he glanced despairingly at 
Henry York ; but his flushed face was turned 
toward the windows. 

No word was spoken. As the bar-keeper 
silently swung a decanter and glass before him, 
he took a cracker from a dish, and mumbled it 
with affected unconcern. He lingered over his 
liquor until its potency stiffened his relaxed 
sinews, and dulled the nervous edge of his ap- 
prehension, and then he suddenly faced around. 
*It don’t, look as if we were goin’ to hev any 


120 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 

lain much afore Christmas,” he said with defi- 
ant ease. 

No one made any reply. 

“Just like this in ’52, and again in ’60. It’n 
always been my opinion that these dry seasons 
come reg’lar. I’ve said it afore. I say it again* 
It’s jist as I said about going home, you know,” 
he added with desperate recklessness. 

“Thar’s a man,” said Abner Dean lazily, 
“ ez sez you never went home. Thar’s a man 
ez sez you’ve been three years in Sonora. 
Thar’s a man ez sez you hain’t seen your wife 
and daughter since ’49. Thar’s a man ez sez 
you’ve been playin’ this camp for six months.” 

There was a dead silence. Then a voice said 
quite as quietly, — 

“ That man lies.” 

It was not the old man’s voice. Everybody 
turned as Henry York slowly rose, stretching 
out his six feet of length, and, brushing away 
the ashes that had fallen from his pipe upon 
his breast, deliberately placed himself beside 
Plunkett, and faced the others. 

“ That man ain’t here,” continued Abner 
Dean, with listless indifference of voice, and a 
gentle pre-occupation of manner, as he care- 
lessly allowed his right hand to rest on his hip 
near his revolver. “ That man ain’t here ; but, 
if I’m called upon to make good what he says, 
why, I’m on hand.” 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 121 


All rose as the two men — perhaps the least 
externally agitated of them all — approached 
each other. The lawyer stepped in between 
tnem. 

“ Perhaps there’s some mistake here. York, 
do yon know that the old man has been home ? ” 
“ Yes.” 

“ How do you know it ? ” 

York turned his clear, honest, frank eyes on 
his questioner, and without a tremor told the 
only direct and unmitigated lie of his life, 
“ Because I’ve seen him there.” 

The answer was conclusive. It was known 
that York had been visiting the East during the 
old man’s absence. The colloquy had diverted 
attention from Plunkett, who, pale and breath- 
less, was staring at his unexpected deliverer. 
As he turned again toward his tormentors, there 
was something in the expression of his eye that 
caused those that were nearest to him to fall 
back, and sent a strange, indefinable thrill 
through the boldest and most reckless. As 
he made a step forward, the physician, almost 
unconsciously, raised his hand with a warning 
gesture ; and old man Plunkett, with his eyes 
fixed upon the red-hot stove, and an odd smiie 
playing about his mouth, began, — 

“Yes — of course you did. Who says yon 
didn’t? It ain’t no lie. I said I was goin 1 


122 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


home — and I’ve been home. Haven’t I ? My 
God! I have. Who says I’ve been lyin’? 
Who says Im dreamin’? Is it true — why 
don’t you speak ? It is true, after all. You say 
you saw me there : why don’t you speak again ? 
Say, say ! — is it true ? It’s going now. O my 
God ! it’s going again. It’s going now. Save 
me ! ” And with a fierce cry he fell forward in 
a fit upon the floor. 

When the old man regained his senses, he 
found himself in York’s cabin. A flickering 
fire of pine-boughs lit up the rude rafters, and 
fell upon a photograph tastefully framed with 
fir-cones, and hung above the brush whereon he 
lay. It was the portrait of a young girl. It 
was the first object to meet the old man’s gaze ; 
and it brought with it a flush of such painful 
consciousness, that he started, and glanced 
quickly around. But his eyes only encountered 
those of York, — clear, gray, critical, and pa- 
tient, — and they fell again. 

“ Tell me, old man,” said York not unkindly, 
but with the same cold, clear tone in his voice 
that his eye betrayed a moment ago, — “ tell 
me, is that a lie too ? ” and he pointed to the 
picture. 

The old man closed his eyes, and did not 
reply. Two hours before, the question would 
Lave stung him into some evasion or bravado. 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 128 

But the revelation contained in the question, as 
well as the tone of York’s voice, was to him now, 
in his pitiable condition, a relief. It was plain, 
even to his confused brain, that York had lied 
when he had indorsed his story in the bar-room : 
it was clear to him now that he had not been 
home, that he was not, as he had begun to 
fear, going mad. It was such a relief, that, with 
characteristic weakness, his former recklessness 
and extravagance returned. He began to 
chuckle, finally to laugh uproariously. 

York, with his eyes still fixed on the old man, 
withdrew the hand with which he had taken 
his. 

“ Didn’t we fool ’em nicely ; eh, Yorky ! He, 
he! The biggest thing yet ever played in this 
camp ! I always said I’d play ’em all some day, 
and I have — played ’em for six months. Ain’t 
it rich ? — ain’t it the richest thing you ever 
seed ? Did you see Abner’s face when he spoke 
’bout that man as seed me in Sonora? Warn’t 
it good as the minstrels ? Oh, it’s too much ! ” 
and, striking his leg with the palm of his hand, 
he almost threw himself from the bed in. a 
paroxysm of laughter, — a paroxysm that, nev- 
ertheless, appeared to be half real and half 
affected. 

“ Is that photograph hers?” said York in a 
low voice, after a slight pause. 


124 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


“Hers? No! It’s one of the San Francisco 
actresses. He, he ! Don’t yon see ? I bought 
it for two bits in one of the bookstores. I 
never thought they’d swaller that too ; but they 
did! Oh, but the old man played ’em this 
time didn’t he — eh?” and he peered curiously 
in York’s face. 

“Yes, and he played me too,” said York, 
looking steadily in the old man’s eye. 

“ Yes, of course,” interposed Plunkett hasti- 
ly ; “ but you know, Yorky, you got out of it 
well! You’ve sold ’em too. We’ve both got 
’em on a string now — you and me — got to 
stick together now. You did it well, Yorky : 
you did it well. Why, when you said you’d 
seen me in York City, I’m d d if I didn’t ” — 

“Didn’t what?” said York gently; for the 
old man had stopped with a pale face and wan- 
dering eye. 

“ Eh?” 

“ You say when I said I had seen you in New 
York you thought ” — 

“ You lie ! ” said the old man fiercely. “ I 
didn’t say I thought any thing. What are you 
trying to go back on me for, eh ? ” His hands 
were trembling as he rose muttering from the 
bed, and made his way toward the hearth. 

“ Gimme some whiskey,” he said presently 
*and dry up. You oughter treat anyway 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 125 


Them fellows oughter treated last night. By 
hookey, I’d made ’em — only I fell sick.” 

York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the 
table beside him, and, going to the door, turned 
his back upon his guest, and looked out on the 
night. Although it was clear moonlight, the 
familiar prospect never to him seemed so drea- 
ry. The dead waste of the broad Wingdam 
highway never seemed so monotonous, so like 
the days that he had passed, and were to come 
to him, so like the old man in its suggestion 
of going sometime, and never getting there. 
He turned, and going up to Plunkett put his 
hand upon his shoulder, and said, — 

“I want you to answer one question fairly 
and squarely.” 

The liquor seemed to have warmed the torpid 
blood in the old man’s veins, and softened his 
acerbity; for the face he turned up to York 
was mellowed in its rugged outline, and more 
thoughtful in expression, as he said, • — 

“ Go on, my boy.” 

“ Have you a wife and — daughter ? ” 

“ Before God I have ! ” 

The two men were silent for a moment, both 
gazing at the fire. Then Plunkett began rub- 
bing his knees slowly. 

“ The wife, if it comes to that, ain’t much,” 
he began cautiously, “being a little on the 


126 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


shoulder, you know, and wantin’, so to speak, 
a liberal California education, which makes, you 
know, a bad combination. It’s always been my 
opinion, that there ain’t any worse. Why, she's 
as ready with her tongue as Abner Dean is with 
his revolver, only with the difference that she 
shoots from principle, as she calls it ; and the 
consequence is, she’s always layin’ for you. 
It’s the effete East, my boy, that’s ruinin’ her. 
It’s them ideas she gets in New York and Bos- 
ton that’s made her and me what we are. I 
don’t mind her havin’ ’em, if she didn’t shoot. 
But, havin’ that propensity, them principles 
oughtn’t to be lying round loose no more’n fire- 
arms.” 

“ But your daughter? ” said York. 

The old man’s hands went up to his eyes 
here, and then both hands and head dropped 
forward on the table. “Don’t say any thing 
’bout her, my boy, don’t ask me now.” With 
one hand concealing his eyes, he fumbled about 
with the other in his pockets for his handker- 
chief — but vainly. Perhaps it was owing to 
this fact, that he repressed his tears ; for, when 
he removed his hand from his eyes, they were 
quite dry. Then he found his voice. 

“ She’s a beautiful girl, beautiful, though I 
say it ; and you shall see her, my boy, — you shall 
see her sure. I’ve got things about fixed now. 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. l27 

I shall have my plan for reducin’ ores perfected 
in a day or two ; and I’ye got proposals from all 
the smeltin’ works here ” (here he hastily pro- 
duced a bundle of papers that fell upon the floor), 
u and I’m goin’ to send for ’em. I’ve got the 
papers here as will give me ten thousand dollars 
clear in the next month,” he added, as he strove 
to collect the valuable documents again. “ I’ll 
have ’em here by Christmas, if I live ; and you 
shall eat your Christmas dinner with me, York, 
my boy, — you shall sure.” 

With his tongue now fairly loosened by 
liquor and the suggestive vastness of his pros- 
pects, he rambled on more or less incoherently, 
elaborating and amplifying his plans, occa- 
sionally even speaking of them as already ac- 
complished, until the moon rode high in the 
heavens, and York led him again to his couch. 
Here he lay for some time muttering to himself, 
until at last he sank into a heavy sleep. When 
York had satisfied himself of the fact, he gently 
took down the picture and frame, and, going to 
the hearth, tossed them on the dying embers, 
and sat down to see them burn. 

The fir-cones leaped instantly into flame ; 
then the features that had entranced San Fran- 
cisco audiences nightly, flashed up and passed 
*way (as such things are apt to pass) ; and 
even the cynical smile on York s lips faded too. 


128 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


And then there came a supplemental and un- 
expected flash as the embers fell together, and 
by its light York saw a paper upon the floor. 
It was one that had fallen from the old man’s 
pocket. As he picked it up listlessly, a photo- 
graph slipped from its folds. It was the portrait 
of a young girl ; and on its reverse was written 
in a scrawling hand, “ Melinda to father.” 

It was at best a cheap picture, but, ah me ! I 
fear even the deft graciousness of the highest 
art could not have softened the rigid angulari- 
ties of that youthful figure, its self-complacent 
vulgarity, its cheap finery, its expressionless ill- 
favor. York did not look at it a second time. 
He turned to the letter for relief. 

It was misspelled; it was unpunctuated; it 
was almost illegible ; it was fretful in tone, and 
selfish in sentiment. It was not, I fear, even 
original in the story of its woes. It was the 
harsh recital of poverty, of suspicion, of mean 
makeshifts and compromises, of low pains and 
lower longings, of sorrows that were degrading, 
of a grief that was pitiable. Yet it was sincere 
in a certain kind of vague yearning for the 
presence of the degraded man to whom it was 
written, — an affection that was more like a con- 
fused instinct than a sentiment. 

York folded it again carefully, and placed it 
beneath ti e old man’s pillow. Then he re* 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 129 


turned to his seat by the fire. A smile that had 
been playing upon his face, deepening the curves 
behind his mustache, and gradually overrun- 
ning his clear gray eyes, presently faded away. 
It was last to go from his eyes ; and it left there, 
oddly enough to those who did not know him, 
a tear. 

He sat there for a long time, leaning forward, 
his head upon his hands. The wind that had 
been striving with the canvas roof all at once 
lifted its edges, and a moonbeam slipped suddenly 
in, and lay for a moment like a shining blade 
upon his shoulder ; and, knighted by its touch, 
straightway plain Henry York arose, sustained, 
high-purposed and self-reliant. 

The rains had come at last. There was al- 
ready a visible greenness on the slopes of Heavy- 
tree Hill ; and the long, white track of the Wing- 
dam road was lost in outlying pools and ponds 
a hundred rods from Monte Flat. The spent 
water-courses, whose white bones had been sin- 
uously trailed over the flat, like the vertebrae of 
some forgotten saurian, were full again; the 
dry bones moved once more in the valley ; and 
there was joy in the ditches, and a pardonable 
extravagance in the columns of “ The Monte Flat 
Monitor.” “ Never before in the history of the 
county has the yield been so satisfactory. Our 


130 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


contemporary of ‘ The Hillside Beacon,’ who 
yesterday facetiously alluded to the fact (?) 
that our best citizens were leaving town in 
1 dugouts,’ on account of the flood, will be glad 
to hear that our distinguished fellow-townsman, 
Mr. Henry York, now on a visit to his relatives 
in the East, lately took with him in his 4 dug- 
out ’ the modest sum of fifty thousand dollars, 
the result of one week’s clean-up. We can 
imagine,” continued that sprightly journal, “that 
no such misfortune is likely to overtake Hillside 
this season. And yet we believe 4 The Beacon ’ 
man wants a railroad.” A few journals broke 
out into poetry. The operator at Simpson’s 
Crossing telegraphed to “ The Sacramento Uni- 
verse” “All day the low clouds have shook 
their garnered fulness down.” A San-Fran- 
cisco journal lapsed into noble verse, thinly 
disguised as editorial prose : “ Rejoice : the 
gentle rain has come, the bright and pearly rain, 
which scatters blessings on the hills, and sifts 
them o’ er the plain. Rejoice,” &c. Indeed, 
there was only one to whom the rain had not 
brought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In 
some mysterious and darksome way, it had in- 
terfered with the perfection of his new method 
of reducing ores, and thrown the advent of 
that invention back another season. It had 
brought him down to an habitual seat in the 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 131 

bar-room, where, to heedless and inattentive 
ears, he sat and discoursed of the East and his 
family. 

No one disturbed him. Indeed, it was ru- 
mored that some funds had been lodged with 
the landlord, by a person or persons unknown, 
whereby his few wants were provided for. His 
mania — for that was the charitable construc- 
tion which Monte Flat put upon his conduct — 
was indulged, even to the extent of Monte Flat’s 
accepting his invitation to dine with his family 
on Christmas Day, — an invitation extended 
frankly to every one with whom the old man 
drank or talked. But one day, to everybody’s 
astonishment, he burst into the bar-room, hold- 
ing an open letter in his hand. It read as fol- 
lows : — 

“ Be ready to meet your family at the new cottage on 
Heavytree Hill on Christmas Day. Invite what friends 
you choose. 

“ Henry York.” 

The letter was handed round in silence. The 
old man, with a look alternating between hope 
and fear, gazed in the faces of the group. The 
doctor looked up significantly, after a pause. 
“It’s a forgery evidently,” he said in a low 
voice. “He’s cunning enough to conceive it 
(they always are) ; but you’ll find he’ll fail in 


132 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 


executing it. Watch his face ! — Old man,” he 
said suddenly, in a loud peremptory tone, “ this 
is a trick, a forgery, and you know it. An- 
swer me squarely, and look me in the eye. Isn’t 
it so?” 

The eyes of Plunkett stared a moment, and 
then dropped weakly. Then, with a feebler 
smile, he said, “ You’re too many for me, boys. 
The Doc’s right. The little game’s up. You 
can take the old man’s hat ; ” and so, tottering, 
trembling, and chuckling, he dropped into si- 
lence and his accustomed seat. But the next 
day he seemed to have forgotten this episode, 
and talked as glibly as ever of the approaching 
festivity. 

And so the days and weeks passed until 
Christmas — a bright, clear day, warmed with 
south winds, and joyous with the resurrection 
of springing grasses — broke upon Monte Flat. 
And then there was a sudden commotion in the 
hotel bar-room ; and Abner Dean stood beside 
the old man’s chair, and shook him out of a 
slumber to his feet. “ Rouse up, old man. York 
is here, with your wife and daughter, at the 
cottage on Heavytree. Come, old man. Here, 
boys, give him a lift ; ” and in another moment 
a dozen strong and willing hands had raised the 
old man, and bore him in triumph to the street 
'jp the steep grade of Heavytree Hill, and de* 


HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 133 


posited him, struggling and confused, in the 
porch of a little cottage. At the same instant 
two women rushed forward, but were restrained 
by a gesture from Henry York. The old man 
was struggling to his feet. With an effort at 
last, he stood erect, trembling, his eye fixed, a 
gray pallor on his cheek, and a deep resonance 
in his voice. 

“ It’s all a trick, and a lie ! They ain’t no 
flesh and blood or kin o’ mine. It ain’t my 
wife, nor child. My daughter’s a beautiful girl 
— a beautiful girl, d’ye hear ? She’s in New York 
with her mother, and I’m going to fetch her here 
I said I’d go home, and I’ve been home : d’ye 
hear me ? ’ I’ve been home ! It’s a mean trick 
you’re playin’ on the old man. Let me go : d’ye 
hear ? Keep them women off me I Let me go ! 
I’m going — I’m going — home ! ” 

His hands were thrown up convulsively in 
the air, and, half turning round, he fell sideways 
on the porch, and so to the ground. They 
picked him up hurriedly, but too late. He had 
gone home. 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


E lived alone. I do not think this 



J — L peculiarity arose from any wish to with- 
draw his foolishness from the rest of the camp ; 
nor was it probable that the combined wisdom 
of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My 
impression is, that he lived alone from choice, — 
a choice he made long before the camp indulged 
in any criticism of his mental capacity. He 
was much given to moody reticence, and, 
although to outward appearances a strong man, 
was always complaining of ill-health. Indeed, 
one theory of his isolation was, that it afforded 
him better opportunities for taking medicine, of 
which he habitually consumed large quantities. 

His folly first dawned upon Five Forks 
through the post-office windows. He was, for 
a long time, the only man who wrote home by 
every mail ; his letters being always directed ta 
the same person, — a woman. Now, it so hap 
pened that the bulk of the Five Forks corre- 
spondence was usually the other way. There 
were many letters received (the majority being 


134 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


135 


in the female hand), but very few answered. 
The men received them indifferently, or as a 
matter of course. A few opened and read them 
on the spot, with a barely repressed smile of 
self-conceit, or quite as frequently glanced ovei 
them with undisguised impatience. Some of 
the letters began with “ My dear husband ; ” and 
some were never called for. But the fact that 
the only regular correspondent of Five Forks 
never received any reply became at last quite 
notorious. Consequently, when an envelope was 
received, bearing the stamp of the 44 dead letter 
office,” addressed to 44 The Fool,” under the 
more conventional title of 44 Cyrus Hawkins,” 
there was quite a fever of excitement. I do 
not know how the secret leaked out ; but it was 
eventually known to the camp, that the enve- 
lope contained Hawkins’s own letters returned. 
This was the first evidence of his weakness. 
Any man who repeatedly wrote to a woman who 
did not reply must be a fool. I think Haw- 
kins suspected that his folly was known to the 
camp ; but he took refuge in symptoms of chills 
and fever, which he at once developed, and 
effected a diversion with three bottles of Indian 
cholagogue and two boxes of pills. At all 
events, at the end of a week, he resumed a pen 
stiffened by tonics, with all his old epistolatory 
pertinacity. This time the letters had a new 
address. 


L36 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


In those days a popular belief obtained in 
the mines, that luck particularly favored the 
foolish and unscientific. Consequently, when 
Hawkins struck a “ pocket ” in the hillside near 
his solitary cabin, there was but little surprise. 
“ He will sink it all in the next hole ” was the 
prevailing belief, predicated upon the usual 
manner in which the possessor of “nigger 
luck ” disposed of his fortune. To everybody’s 
astonishment, Hawkins, after taking out about 
eight thousand dollars, and exhausting the 
pocket, did not prospect for another. The 
camp then waited patiently to see what he 
would do with his money. I think, however, that 
it was with the greatest difficulty their indigna- 
tion was kept from taking the form of a personal 
assault when it became known that he had 
purchased a draft for eight thousand dollars, in 
favor of “ that woman.” More than this, it 
was finally whispered that the draft was returned 
to him as his letters had been, and that he was 
ashamed to reclaim the money at the express- 
office. “ It wouldn’t be a bad specilation to go 
East, get some smart gal, for a hundred dollars, 
to dress herself up and represent that ‘Hag,’ 
and jest freeze onto that eight thousand,” sug- 
gested a far-seeing financier. I may state here, 
that we always alluded to Hawkins’s fair un- 
known as the “ Hag ” without having, I am 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


137 


confident, the least justification for that epi- 
thet. 

That the “ Fool ” should gamble seemed emi- 
nently fit and proper. That he should occasion- 
ally win a large stake, according to that popular 
theory which I have recorded in the preceding 
paragraph, appeared, also, a not improbable or 
inconsistent fact. That he should, however, 
break the faro hank which Mr. John Hamlin 
had set up in Five Forks, and carry off a sum 
variously estimated at from ten to twenty thou- 
sand dollars, and not return the next day, and 
lose the money at the same table, really 
appeared incredible. Yet such was the fact. 
A day or two passed without any known invest- 
ment of Mr. Hawkins’s recently-acquired cap- 
ital. “ Ef he allows to send it to that 4 Hag,’ ’* 
said one prominent citizen, “ suthin’ ought to 
be done. It’s jest ruinin’ the reputation of 
this yer camp, — this sloshin’ around o’ capital 
on non-residents ez don’t claim it ! ” “ It’s 

settin’ an example o’ extravagance,” said 
another, “ ez is little better nor a swindle. 
Thais mor’n five men in this camp, thet, hearin’ 
tket Hawkins hed sent home eight thousand 
dollars, must jest rise up and send home their 
hard earnings too ! And then to think thet 
thet eight thousand was only a bluff, after all, 
and thet it’s lyin’ there on call in Adams & 


138 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


Co.’s bank ! Well, I say it’s one o’ them things 
a vigilance committee oughter look into.” 

When there seemed no possibility of this 
repetition of Hawkins’s folly, the anxiety to 
know what he had really done with his money 
became intense. At last a self-appointed com- 
mittee of four citizens dropped artfully, but to 
outward appearances carelessly, upon him in his 
seclusion. When some polite formalities had 
been exchanged, and some easy vituperation 
of a backward season offered by each of the 
parties, Tom Wingate approached the subject. 

44 Sorter dropped heavy on Jack Hamlin the 
other night, didn’t ye ? He allows you didn’t 
give him no show for revenge. I said you 
wasn’t no such d — d fool ; didn’t I, Dick ? ” 
continued the artful Wingate, appealing to a 
confederate. 

u Yes,” said Dick promptly. 44 You said 
twenty thousand dollars wasn’t goin’ to be 
thrown around recklessly. You said Cyrus had 
suthin’ better to do with his capital,” super- 
added Dick with gratuitous mendacity. 44 1 dis- 
remember now what partickler investment you 
said he was goin’ to make with it,” he con- 
tinued, appealing with easy indifference to his 
friend. 

Of course Wingate did not reply, but looked 
*t the 44 Fool,” who, with a troubled face, was 

4 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


139 


rubbing bis legs softly. After a pause, be 
turned deprecatingly toward his visitors. 

“Ye didn’t enny of ye ever hev a sort of 
tremblin’ in your legs, a kind o’ shakiness 
from the knee down? Suthin’,” he continued, 
slightly brightening with his topic, — “ suthin’ 
that begins like chills, and yet ain’t chills? A 
kind o’ sensation of goneness here, and a kind 
o’ feelin’ as if you might die suddint ? — when 
Wright’s Pills don’t somehow reach the spot, 
and quinine don’t fetch you ? ” 

“ No ! ” said Wingate with a curt directness, 
and the air of authoritatively responding for his 
friends, — “no, never had. You was speakin’ 
of this yer investment.” 

“And your bowels all the time irregular?” 
continued Hawkins, blushing under Wingate’s 
eye, and yet clinging despairingly to his theme, 
like a shipwrecked mariner to his plank. 

Wingate did not reply, but glanced signifi- 
cantly at the rest. Hawkins evidently saw this 
recognition of his mental deficiency, and said 
apologetically, “ You was saying suthin’ about 
my investment ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Wingate, so rapidly as to almost 
bake Hawkins’s breath away, — “ the investment 
you made in ” — 

“ Rafferty’s Ditch,” said the “ Fool ” timidly. 

For a moment, the visitors could only stare 


140 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


blankly at each other. “ Rafferty’s Ditch,” the 
one notorious failure of Five Forks ! — Rafferty’s 
Ditch, the impracticable scheme of an utterly - 
unpractical man ! — Rafferty’s Ditch, a ridicu- 
lous plan for taking water that could not be 
got to a place where it wasn’t wanted ! — Raff- 
erty’s Ditch, that had buried the fortunes of 
Rafferty and twenty wretched stockholders in 
its muddy depths ! 

“ And thet’s it, is it ? ” said Wingate, after a 
gloomy pause. “ Thet’s it ! I see it all now, 
boys. That’s how ragged Pat Rafferty went 
down to San Francisco yesterday in store- 
clothes, and his wife and four children went off 
in a kerridge to Sacramento. Thet’s why them 
ten workmen of his, ez hadn’t a cent to bless 
themselves with, was playin’ billiards last night, 
and eatin’ isters. Thet’s whar that money kum 
frum, — one hundred dollars to pay for the 
long advertisement of the new issue of ditch 
stock in the “ Times ” yesterday. Thet’s why 
them six strangers were booked at the Magnolia 
Hotel yesterday. Don’t you see? It’s thet 
money — and that ‘ Fool ’ ! ” 

The “Fool” sat silent. ‘ The visitors rose 
without a word. 

“ You never took any of them Indian Vege- 
table Pills ? ” asked Hawkins timidly of Win* 
gate. 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


141 


“ No ! ” roared Wingate as he opened the 
door. 

“ They tell me, that, took with the Panacea, — 
they was out o’ the Panacea when I went to the 
drug-store last week,— they say, that, took with 
the Panacea, they always effect a certin cure.” 
But by this time, Wingate and his disgusted 
friends had retreated, slamming the door on 
the “ Fool ” and his ailments. 

Nevertheless, in six months the whole affair 
was forgotten : the money had been spent ; the 
“ Ditch ” had been purchased by a company of 
Boston capitalists, fired by the glowing descrip- 
tion of an Eastern tourist, who had spent one 
drunken night at Five Forks; and I think 
even the mental condition of Hawkins might 
have remained undisturbed by criticism, but for 
a singular incident. 

It was during an exciting political campaign, 
when party-feeling ran high, that the irascible 
Capt. McFadden of Sacramento visited Five 
Forks. During a heated discussion in the 
Prairie Rose Saloon, words passed between the 
captain and the Hon. Calhoun Bungstarter, 
ending in a challenge. The captain bore the in- 
felicitous reputation of being a notorious duellist 
and a dead-shot. The captain was unpopular. 
The captain was believed to have been sent by 
the opposition for a deadly purpose; and the 


142 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FOKKS. 


captain was, moreover, a stranger. I am sorry 
to say that with Five Forks this latter condi- 
tion did not carry the quality of sanctity or 
reverence that usually obtains among other 
nomads. There was, consequently, some little 
hesitation when the captain turned upon the 
crowd, and asked for some one to act as his 
friend. To everybody’s astonishment, and to 
the indignation of many, the “ Fool ” stepped 
forward, and offered himself in that capacity. 
I do not know whether Capt. McFadden would 
have chosen him voluntarily ; but he was con- 
strained, in the absence of a better man, to 
accept his services. 

The duel never took place. The prelimina- 
ries were all arranged, the spot indicated ; the 
men were present with their seconds ; there 
was no interruption from without ; there was no 
explanation or apology passed — but the duel 
did not take place. It may be readily imagined 
that these facts, which were all known to Five 
Forks, threw the whole community into a fever 
of curiosity. The principals, the surgeon, and 
one second left town the next day. Only the 
“ Fool ” remained. He resisted all questioning, 
declaring himself held in honor not to divulge : 
in short, conducted himself with consistent 
but exasperating folly. It was not until six 
months had passed, that Col. Starbottle, the 


THE POOL OF FIVE FORKS. 143 

second of Calhoun Bungstarter, in a moment of 
weakness, superinduced by the social glass, 
condescended to explain. I should not do 
justice to the parties, if I did not give that 
explanation in the colonel’s own words. I may 
remark, in passing, that the characteristic 
dignity of Col. Starbottle always became inten- 
sified by stimulants, and that, by the same 
process, all sense of humor was utterly elimi- 
nated. 

“ With the understanding that I am address- 
ing myself confidentially to men of honor,” 
said the colonel, elevating his chest above the 
bar-room counter of the Prairie Rose Saloon, 
“ I trust that it will not be necessary for me to 
protect myself from levity, as I was forced to 
do in Sacramento on the only other occasion 
when I entered into an explanation of this 
delicate affair by — er — er — calling the indi- 
vidual to a personal account — er. I do not 
believe,” added the colonel, slightly waving his 
glass of liquor in the air with a graceful gesture 
of courteous deprecation, “knowing what I 
do of the present company, that such a course 
of action is required here. Certainly not, 
sir, in the hom'3 of Mr. Hawkins — er — the 
gentleman who represented Mr. Bungstarter, 
whose conduct, ged, sir, is worthy of praise, 
olank me!” 


144 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 


Apparently satisfied with tlie gravity and 
respectful attention of his listeners, Col. Star- 
bottle smiled relentingly and sweetly, closed his 
eyes half-dreamily, as if to recall his wandering 
thoughts, and began, — 

“ As the spot selected was nearest the tene- 
ment of Mr. Hawkins, it was agreed that 
the parties should meet there. They did so 
promptly at half-past six. The morning being 
chilly, Mr. Hawkins extended the hospitalities 
of his house with a bottle of Bourbon whiskey, 
of which all partook but myself. The reason 
for that exception is, I believe, well known. It 
is my invariable custom to take brandy — a 
wineglassful in a cup of strong coffee — imme- 
diately on rising. It stimulates the functions, 
sir, without producing any blank derangement 
of the nerves.” 

The barkeeper, to whom, as an expert, the 
colonel had graciously imparted this informa- 
tion, nodded approvingly; and the colonel, amid 
a breathless silence, went on. 

“ We were about twenty minutes in reaching 
the spot. The ground was measured, the 
weapons were loaded, when Mr. Bungstarter 
confided to me the information that he was 
unwell, and in great pain. On consultation 
with Mr. Hawkins, it appeared that his prin 
sipal, in a distant part of the field, was also 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


145 


Buffering, and in great pain. The symptoms 
were such as a medical man would pronounce 
‘ choleraic.’ I say would have pronounced ; for, 
on examination, the surgeon was also found to 
he — er — in pain, and, I regret to say, express- 
ing himself in language unbecoming the occa- 
sion. His impression was, that some powerful 
drug had been administered. On referring the 
question to Mr. Hawkins, he remembered that 
the bottle of whiskey partaken by them con- 
tained a medicine which he had been in the 
habit of taking, but which, having failed to 
act upon him, he had concluded to be generally 
ineffective, and had forgotten. His perfect 
willingness to hold himself personally respon- 
sible to each of the parties, his genuine concern 
at the disastrous effect of the mistake, mingled 
with his own alarm at the state of his system, 
which — er — failed to — er — respond to the 
peculiar qualities of the medicine, was most 
becoming to him as a man of honor and a 
gentleman. After an hour’s delay, both prin- 
cipals being completely exhausted, and aban- 
doned by the surgeon, who was unreasonably 
alarmed at his own condition, Mr. Hawkins and 
I agreed to remove our men to Markleville. 
There, after a further consultation with Mr. 
Hawddns, an amicable adjustment of all difficul- 
ties, honorable to both parties, and governed by 


146 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


profound secret, was arranged. I believe/’ 
added the colonel, looking around, and setting 
down his glass, “no gentleman has yet ex- 
pressed himself other than satisfied with the 
result.” 

Perhaps it was the colonel’s manner ; but, 
whatever was the opinion of Five Forks regard- 
ing the intellectual display of Mr. Hawkins in 
this affair, there was very little outspoken 
criticism at the moment. In a few weeks the 
whole thing was forgotten, except as part of 
the necessary record of Hawkins’s blunders, 
which was already a pretty full one. Again, 
some later follies conspired to obliterate the 
past, until, a year later, a valuable lead was 
discovered in the “ Blazing Star ” tunnel, in the 
hill where he lived; and a large sum was 
offered him for a portion of his land on the hill- 
top. Accustomed as Five Forks had become to 
the exhibition of his folly, it was with astonish- 
ment that they learned that he resolutely and 
decidedly refused the offer. The reason that he 
gave was still more astounding, — he was about 
to build. 

To build a house upon property available for 
mining-purposes was preposterous ; to build at 
all, with a roof already covering him, was an 
act of extravagance; to build a house of the 
style he proposed was simply madness. 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


147 


Yet here were facts. The plans were made, 
and the lumber for the new building was 
already on the ground, while the shaft of the 
“Blazing Star” was being sunk below. The 
site was, in reality, a very picturesque one, 
the building itself of a style and quality 
hitherto unknown in Five Forks. The citizens, 
at first sceptical, during their moments of 
recreation and idleness gathered doubtingly 
about the locality. Day by day, in that climate 
of rapid growths, the building, pleasantly 
known in the slang of Five Forks as the “ Idiot 
Asylum,” rose beside the green oaks and clus- 
tering firs of Hawkins Hill, as if it were part 
of the natural phenomena. At last it was 
completed. Then Mr. Hawkins proceeded to 
furnish it with an expensiveness and extrava- 
gance of outlay quite in keeping with his 
former idiocy. Carpets, sofas, mirrors, and 
finally a piano, — the only one known in the 
county, and brought at great expense from 
Sacramento, — kept curiosity at a fever-heat. 
More than that, there were articles and orna- 
ments which a few married experts declared 
only fit for women. When the furnishing of 
the house was complete, — it had occupied two 
months of the speculative and curious attention 
of the camp, — Mr. Hawkins locked the front- 
door, put the key in his pocket, and quietly 


148 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FOEKS. 


retired to his more humble roof, lower on the 
hillside. 

I have not deemed it necessary to indicate to 
the intelligent reader all of the theories which 
obtained in Five Forks during the erection of 
the building. Some of them may be readily 
imagined. That the “Hag” had, by artful 
coyness and systematic reticence, at last com- 
pletely subjugated the “ Fool,” and that the new 
house was intended for the nuptial bower of the 
(predestined) unhappy pair, was, of course, the 
prevailing opinion. But when, after a rea- 
sonable time had elapsed, and the house still 
remained untenanted, the more exasperating 
conviction forced itself upon the general mind, 
that the “ Fool ” had been for the third time im- 
posed upon; when two months had elapsed, 
and there seemed no prospect of a mistress for 
the new house, — I think public indignation be- 
came so strong, that, had the “ Hag ” arrived, 
the marriage would have been publicly pre- 
vented. But no one appeared that seemed to an- 
swer to this idea of an available tenant ; and all 
inquiry of Mr. Hawkins as to his intention in 
building a house, and not renting it, or occu- 
pying it, failed to elicit any further information. 
The reasons that he gave were felt to be vague, 
evasive, and unsatisfactory. He was in no hurry 
to move, he said. When he was ready, it surely 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FOBKS. 


149 


was not strange that he should like to have his 
house all ready to receive him. He was often 
seen upon the veranda, of a summer evening, 
smoking a cigar. It is reported that one night 
the house was observed to be brilliantly lighted 
from garret to basement ; that a neighbor, observ- 
ing this, crept toward the open parlor-window, 
and, looking in, espied the “Fool” accurately 
dressed in evening costume, lounging upon a sofa 
in the drawing-room, with the easy air of socially 
entertaining a large party. Notwithstanding 
this, the house was unmistakably vacant that 
evening, save for the presence of the owner, as 
tjie witness afterward testified. When this 
story was first related, a few practical men sug 
gested the theory that Mr. Hawkins was simply 
drilling himself in the elaborate duties of hos- 
pitality against a probable event in his history. 
A few ventured the belief that the house was 
haunted. The imaginative editor of the Five 
Forks “Record” evolved from the depths of 
his professional consciousness a story that Haw 
kins’s sweetheart had died, and that he regu- 
larly entertained her spirit in this beautifully 
furnished mausoleum. The occasional spectacle 
of Hawkins’s tall figure pacing the veranda on 
moonlight nights lent some credence to this 
theory, until an unlooked-for incident diverted 
all speculation into anotner channel. 


150 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


It was about this time that a certain wild, 
rude valley, in the neighborhood of Five Forks, 
had become famous as a picturesque resort. 
Travellers had visited it, and declared that there 
were more cubic yards of rough stone cliff, and 
a waterfall of greater height, than any they had 
visited. Correspondents had written it up with 
extravagant rhetoric and inordinate poetical 
quotation. Men and women who had never 
enjoyed a sunset, a tree, or a flower, who had 
never appreciated the graciousness or meaning 
of the yellow sunlight that flecked their homely 
doorways, or the tenderness of a midsummer’s 
night, to whose moonlight they bared their 
shirt-sleeves or their tulle dresses, came from 
thousands of miles away to calculate the height 
of this rock, to observe the depth of this chasm, 
to remark upon the enormous size of this 
unsightly tree, and to believe with ineffable 
self-complacency that they really admired 
Nature. And so it came to pass, that, in accord- 
ance with the tastes or weaknesses of the indi- 
vidual, the more prominent and salient points 
of the valley were christened ; and there was a 
“ Lace Handkerchief Fall,” and the “ Tears of 
Sympathy Cataract,’" and one distinguished 
orator’s “Peak,” and several “Mounts” of 
various noted people, living or dead, and an 
w Exclamation-Point,” and a “ Valley of Silent 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FOKKS. 


151 


Adoration.” And, in course of time, empty 
soda-water bottles were found at the base of the 
cataract, and greasy newspapers, and fragments 
of ham-sandwiches, lay at the dusty roots of 
giant trees. With this, there were frequent 
irruptions of closely-shaven and tightly-cravated 
men, and delicate, flower-faced women, in the 
one long street of Five Forks, and a scamper- 
ing of mules, and an occasional procession of 
dusty brown-linen cavalry. 

A year after “ Hawkins’s Idiot Asylum ” was 
completed, one day there drifted into the valley 
a riotous cavalcade of “ school-marms,” teachers 
of the San-Francisco public schools, out for a 
holiday. Not severely-spectacled Minervas, and 
chastely armed and mailed Pallases, but, I fear, 
for the security of Five Forks, very human, 
charming, and mischievous young women. At 
least, so the men thought, working in the 
ditches, and tunnelling on the hillside ; and 
when, in the interests of science, and the mental 
advancement of juvenile posterity, it was finally 
settled that they should stay in Five Forks two 
or three days for the sake of visiting the various 
mines, and particularly the “ Blazing Star ” 
tunnel, there was some flutter of masculine 
anxiety. There was a considerable inquiry for 
u store-clothes^” a hopeless overhauling of old 
and disused raiment, and a general demand for 
“ boiled shirts ” and the barber. 


152 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


Meanwhile, with that supreme audacity and 
impudent hardihood of the sex when gregarious, 
the school-marms rode through the town, admir- 
ing openly the handsome faces and manly 
figures that looked up from the ditches, or rose 
behind the cars of ore at the mouths of tunnels. 
Indeed, it is alleged that Jenny Forester, backed 
and supported by seven other equally shameless 
young women, had openly and publicly waved 
her handkerchief to the florid Hercules of Five 
Forks, one Tom Flynn, formerly of Virginia, 
leaving that good-natured but not over-bright 
giant pulling his blonde mustaches in bashful 
amazement. 

It was a pleasant June afternoon that Miss 
Milly Arnot, principal of the primary depart- 
ment of one of the public schools of San Fran- 
cisco, having evaded her companions, resolved 
to put into operation a plan which had lately 
sprung up in her courageous and mischief-loving 
fancy. With that wonderful and mysterious 
instinct of her sex, from whom no secrets of 
the affections are hid, and to whom all hearts 
are laid open, she had heard the story of Haw- 
kins’s folly, and the existence of the “Idiot 
Asylum.” Alone, on Hawkins Hill, she had 
determined to penetrate its seclusion. Skirting 
the underbrush at the foot of the hill, she 
managed to keep the heaviest timber between 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


153 


berself and the “ Blazing Star ” tunnel at its 
base, as well as the cabin of Hawkins, half-way 
up the ascent, until, by a circuitous route, 
at last she reached, unobserved, the summit. 
Before her rose, silent, darkened, and motion- 
less, the object of her search. Here her 
courage failed her, with all the characteristic 
inconsequence of her sex. A sudden fear of 
all the dangers she had safely passed — bears, 
tarantulas, drunken men, and lizards — came 
upon her. For a moment, as she afterward 
expressed it, “ she thought she should die.” 
With this belief, probably, she gathered three 
large stones, which she could hardly lift, for the 
purpose of throwing a great distance ; put two 
hair-pins in her mouth ; and carefully re-adjusted 
with both hands two stray braids of her lovely 
blue-black mane, which had fallen in gathering 
the stones. Then she felt in the pockets of her 
linen duster for her card-case, handkerchief, 
pocket-book, and smelling-bottle, and, finding 
them intact, suddenly assumed an air of easy, 
ladylike unconcern, went up the steps of the 
veranda, and demurely pulled the front door- 
bell, which she knew would not be answered. 
After a decent pause, she walked around the 
encompassing veranda, examining the closed 
shutters of the French windows until she found 
one that yielded to her touch. Here she paused 


154 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


again to adjust her coquettish hat by the 
mirror-like surface of the long sash-window, 
that reflected the full length of her pretty 
figure. And then she opened the window, and 
entered the room. 

Although long closed, the house had a smell 
of newness and of fresh paint, that was quite un- 
like the mouldiness of the conventional haunted 
house. The bright carpets, the cheerful walls, 
the glistening oil-cloths, were quite inconsistent 
with the idea of a ghost. With childish curios- 
ity, she began to explore the silent house, at first 
timidly, — opening the doors with a violent push, 
and then stepping back from the threshold to 
make good a possible retreat, — and then more 
boldly, as she became convinced of her security 
and absolute loneliness. In one of the cham- 
bers — the largest — there were fresh flowers in 
a vase, evidently gathered that morning ; and, 
what seemed still more remarkable, the pitchers 
and ewers were freshly filled with water. This 
obliged Miss Milly to notice another singular 
fact, namely, that the house was free from dust, 
the one most obtrusive and penetrating visitor 
of Five Forks. The floors and carpets had been 
recently swept, the chairs and furniture carefully 
wiped and dusted. If the house was haunted, 
it was possessed by a spirit who had none of the 
usual indifference to decay and mould. And yet 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


151 


the beds had evidently never been slept in , the 
very springs of the chair in which she sat 
creaked stiffly at the novelty ; the closet-doors 
opened with the reluctance of fresh paint and 
varnish; and in spite of the warmth, cleanli- 
ness, and cheerfulness of furniture and decora- 
tion, there was none of the ease of tenancy and 
occupation. As Miss Milly afterward confessed, 
she longed to “ tumble things around and, when 
she reached the parlor or drawing-room again, 
she could hardly resist the desire * Particularly 
was she tempted by a closed piano, that stood 
mutely against the wall. She thought she would 
open it just to see who was the maker. That 
done, it would be no harm to try its tone. She 
did so, with one little foot on the soft pedal. 
But Miss Milly was too good a player, and too 
enthusiastic a musician, to stop at half-measures. 
She tried it again, this time so sincerely, that 
the whole house seemed to spring into voice. 
Then she stopped and listened. There was no 
response : the empty rooms seemed to have re- 
lapsed into their old stillness. She stepped out 
on the veranda. A woodpecker recommenced his 
tapping on an adjacent tree : the rattle of a cart 
in the rocky gulch below the hill came faintly 
up. No one was to be seen far or near. Miss 
Milly, re-assured, returned. She again ran her 
ffligers over the keys, stopped, caught at a mel- 


156 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


ody running in her mind, half played it, and 
then threw away all caution. Before five min- 
utes had elapsed, she had entirely forgotten her- 
self, and with her linen duster thrown aside, 
her straw hat flung on the piano, her white 
hands bared, and a black loop of her braided 
hair hanging upon her shoulder, was fairly 
embarked upon a flowing sea of musical recol- 
lection. 

She had played, perhaps, half an hour, when 
haying just finished an elaborate symphony, and 
resting her hands on the keys, she heard very 
distinctly and unmistakably the sound of ap- 
plause from without. In an instant the fires of 
shame and indignation leaped into her cheeks; 
and she rose from the instrument, and ran to the 
window, only in time to catch sight of a dozen 
figures in blue and red flannel shirts vanishing 
hurriedly through the trees below. 

Miss Milly’s mind was instantly made up. I 
think I have already intimated, that, under the 
stimulus of excitement, she was not wanting in 
courage ; and as she quietly resumed her gloves, 
hat, and duster, she was not, perhaps, exactly 
the young person that it would be entirely safe 
for the timid, embarrassed, or inexperienced of 
m} T sex to meet alone. She shut down the 
piano ; and having carefully reclosed all the 
windows and doors, and restored the house to 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


157 


its former desolate condition, she stepped from 
the veranda, and proceeded directly to the cabin 
of the unintellectual Hawkins, that reared its 
adobe chimney above the umbrage a quarter of 
a mile below. 

The door opened instantly to her impulsive 
knock, and the “ Fool of Five Forks ” stood before 
her. Miss Milly had never before seen the man 
designated by this infelicitous title ; and as he 
stepped backward, in half courtesy and hdf 
astonishment, she was, for the moment, discon- 
certed. He was tall, finely formed, and dark- 
bearded. Above cheeks a little hollowed by 
care and ill-health shone a pair of hazel eyes, 
very large, very gentle, but inexpressibly sad 
and mournful. This was certainly not the kind 
of man Miss Milly had expected to see ; yet, 
after her first embarrassment had passed, the 
very circumstance, oddly enough, added to her 
indignation, and stung her wounded pride still 
more deeply. Nevertheless, the arch hypocrite 
instantly changed her tactics with the swift 
intuition of her sex. 

“ I have come,” she said with a dazzling smile, 
infinitely more dangerous than her former digni- 
fied severity, — “I have come to ask your pardon 
for a great liberty I have just taken. I believe 
the new house above us on the hill is yours. I 
was so much pleased with its exterior, that I left 


158 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


my friends for a moment below here,” she con- 
tinued artfully, with a slight wave of the hand, 
as if indicating a band of fearless Amazons with- 
out, and waiting to avenge any possible insult 
offered to one of their number, “ and ventured 
to enter it. Finding it unoccupied, as I had 
been told, I am afraid I had the audacity to sit 
down and amuse myself for a few moments at 
the piano, while waiting for my friends.” 

Hawkins raised his beautiful eyes to hers. He 
saw a very pretty girl, with frank gray eyes 
glistening with excitement, with two red, slight- 
ly freckled cheeks glowing a little under his 
eyes, with a short scarlet upper-lip turned back, 
like a rose-leaf, over a little line of white teeth, 
as she breathed somewhat hurriedly in her ner- 
vous excitement. He saw all this calmly, quiet- 
ly, and, save for the natural uneasiness of a shy, 
reticent man, I fear without a quickening of his 
pulse. 

“ I knowdd it,” he said simply. “ I heerd ye 
as I kem up.” 

Miss Milly was furious at his grammar, his 
dialect, his coolness, and, still more, at the sus- 
picion that he was an active member of her in 
visible claque. 

“Ah ! ” she said, still smiling. u Then I think I 
heard you ” — 

“ I reckon not,” he interrupted gravely. “ ] 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


159 


didn’t stay long. I found the boys hanging 
round the house, and I allowed at first I’d go in 
and kinder warn you ; but they promised to keep 
still : and you looked so comfortable, and wrapped 
up in your music, that I hadn’t the heart to dis- 
turb you, and kem away. I hope,” he added 
earnestly, “they didn’t let on ez they heerd 
you. They ain’t a bad lot, — them Blazin’ Star 
boys — though they’re a little hard at times. 
But they’d no more hurt ye then they would a 
— a — a cat ! ” continued Mr. Hawkins, blush- 
ing with a faint apprehension of the inelegance 
of his simile. 

“No, no ! ” said Miss Milly, feeling suddenly 
very angry with herself, the “Fool,” and the 
entire male population of Five Forks. “ No ! I 
have behaved foolishly, I suppose — and, if they 
had , it would have served me right. But I 
only wanted to apologize to you. You’ll find 
every thing as you left it. Good-day ! ” 

She turned to go. Mr. Hawkins began to feel 
embarrassed. “ I’d have asked ye to sit down,” 
he said finally, “ if it hed been a place fit for a 
lady. I ougliter done so, enny way. I don’t 
know what kept me from it. But I ain’t well, 
xniss. Times I get a sort o’ dumb ager, — it’s 
the ditches, I think, miss, — and I don’t seem to 
hev my wits about me.” 

Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy : hei 
'juick woman’s heart was touched. 


160 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FOLKS. 


“ Can I — can any thing be done ? ” she asked 
more timidly than she had before spoken. 

“No — not onless ye remember sutkin’ about 
these pills.” He exhibited a box containing 
about half a dozen. “ I forget the direction — 
I don’t seem to remember much, any way, these 
times. They’re 4 Jones’s Vegetable Compound.’ 
If ye’ve ever took ’em, ye’ll remember whether 
the reg’lar dose is eight. They ain’t but six 
here. But perhaps ye never tuk any,” he added 
deprecatingly. 

“ No,” said Miss Milly curtly. She had usu- 
ally a keen sense of the ludicrous ; but somehow 
Mr. Hawkins’s eccentricity only pained her. 

“Will you let me see you to the foot of the 
hill ? ” he said again, after another embarrassing 
pause. 

Miss Arnot felt instantly that such an act 
would condone her trespass in the eyes of the 
world. She might meet some of her invisible 
admirers, or even her companions ; and, with all 
her erratic impulses, she was, nevertheless, a 
woman, and did not entirely despise the verdict 
of conventionality. She smiled sweetly, and 
assented ; and in another moment the two were 
lost in the shadows of the wood. 

like many other apparently trivial acts in 
an uneventful life, it was decisive. As she 
expected, she met two or three of her late 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 161 

• 

applauders, whom, she fancied, looked sheepish 
and embarrassed ; she met, also, her companions 
looking for her in some alarm, who really 
appeared astonished at her escort, and, she 
fancied, a trifle envious of her evident success. 
I fear that Miss Arnot, in response to their 
anxious inquiries, did not state entirely the 
truth, but, without actual assertion, led them 
to believe that she had, at a very early stage 
of the proceeding, completely subjugated this 
weak-minded giant, and had brought him tri- 
umphantly to her feet. From telling this story 
two or three times, she got finally to believing 
that she had some foundation for it, then to a 
vague sort of desire that it would eventually 
prove to be true, and then to an equally vague 
yearning to hasten that consummation. That 
it would redound to any satisfaction of the 
“ Fool ” she did not stop to doubt. That it would 
cure him of his folly she was quite confident. 
Indeed, there are very few of us, men or 
women, who do not believe that even a hope- 
less love for ourselves is more conducive to 
the salvation of the lover than a requited affec- 
tion for another. 

The criticism of Five Forks was, as the 
reader may imagine, swift and conclusive. 
When it was found out that Miss Arnot was 
not the “ Hag ” masquerading as a young and 


162 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


pretty girl, to the ultimate deception of Five 
Forks in general, and the “ Fool ” in particular 
it was at once decided that nothing but the 
speedy union of the “Fool” and the “pretty 
school-marm ” was consistent with ordinary 
common sense. The singular good-fortune of 
Hawkins was quite in accordance with the 
theory of his luck as propounded by the camp. 
That, after the “Hag” failed to make her 
appearance, he should “ strike a lead ” in his 
own house, without the trouble of “ prospect- 
in’,” seemed to these casuists as a wonderful 
but inevitable law. To add to these fateful 
probabilities, Miss Arnot fell, and -sprained her 
ankle, in the- ascent of Mount Lincoln, and was 
confined for some weeks to the hotel after her 
companions had departed. During this period, 
Hawkins was civilly but grotesquely attentive. 
When, after a reasonable time had elapsed, 
there still appeared to be no immediate pros- 
pect of the occupancy of the new house, public 
opinion experienced a singular change in regard 
to its theories of Mr. Hawkins’s conduct. The 
“ Hag ” was looked upon as a saint-like and long- 
suffering martyr to the weaknesses and incon- 
sistency of the “ Fool.” That, after erecting 
this new house at her request, he had suddenly 
“ gone back ” on her ; that his celibacy was the 
result of a long habit of weak proposal and 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FOKKS. 


163 


subsequent shameless rejection; and that he 
was now trying his hand on the helpless school- 
marm, was perfectly plain to Five Forks. That 
he should be frustrated in his attempts at any 
cost was equally plain. Miss Milly suddenly 
found herself invested with a rude chivalry 
that would have been amusing, had it not been 
at times embarrassing; that would have been 
impertinent, but for the almost superstitious 
respect with which it was proffered. Every 
day somebody from Five Forks rode out to 
inquire the health of the fair patient. u Hez 
Hawkins bin over yer to-day ? ” queried Tom 
Flynn, with artful ease and indifference, as he 
leaned over Miss Milly’s easy-chair on the 
veranda. Miss Milly, with a faint pink flush 
on her cheek, was constrained to answer, “ No.” 
“ Well, he sorter sprained his foot agin a rock 
yesterday,” continued Flynn with shameless 
untruthfulness. “ You mus’n’t think any thing 
o’ that, Miss Arnot. He’ll be over yer to-mor- 
rer ; and meantime he told me to hand this yer 
bookay with his re-gards, and this yer speci- 
men.” And Mr. Flynn laid down the flower^ 
he had picked en route against such an emer- 
gency, and presented respectfully a piece of 
quartz and gold, which he had taken that morn- 
ing from his own sluice-box. “ You mus’n’t 
mind Hawkins’s ways, Miss Milly,” said anothei 


164 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


sympathizing miner. “ There ain’t a better 
man in camp than that theer Cy Hawkins — 
but he don’t understand the ways o’ the world 
with wimen. He hasn’t mixed as much with 
society as the rest of us,” he added, with an 
elaborate Chesterfieldian ease of manner ; “ but 
he means well.” Meanwhile a few other sympa- 
thetic tunnel-men were impressing upon Mr. 
Hawkins the necessity of the greatest attention 
to the invalid. “It won’t do, Hawkins,” they 
explained, “to let that there gal go back to 
San Francisco and say, that, when she was sick 
and alone, the only man in Five Forks under 
whose roof she had rested, and at whose table 
she had sat ” (this was considered a natural 
but pardonable exaggeration of rhetoric) “ ever 
threw off on her ; and it sha’n’t be done. It 
ain’t the square thing to Five Forks.” And 
then the “ Fool ” would rush away to the valley, 
and be received by Miss Milly with a certain 
reserve of manner that finally disappeared in a 
flush of color, sJme increased vivacity, and a 
pardonable coquetry. And so the days passed. 
Miss Milly grew better in health, and more 
troubled in mind; and Mr. Hawkins became 
more and more embarrassed; and Five Forks 
smiled, and rubbed its hands, and waited for 
the approaching denoHment. And then it came 
— but not, perhaps, in the manner that Five 
Forks had imagined. 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


165 


It was a lovely afternoon in July that a 
p\rty of Eastern tourists rode into Five Forks. 
They had just “done” the Valley of Big 
Things; and, there being one or two Eastern 
capitalists among the party, it was deemed 
advisable that a proper knowledge of the prac- 
tical mining-resources of California should be 
added to their experience of the merely pictur- 
esque in Nature. Thus far every thing had been 
satisfactory ; the amount of water which passed 
over the Fall was large, owing to a backward 
season ; some snow still remained in the canons 
near the highest peaks ; they had ridden round 
one of the biggest trees, and through the pros- 
trate trunk of another. To say that they were 
delighted is to express feebly the enthusiasm 
of these ladies and gentlemen, drunk with the 
champagny hospitality of their entertainers, the 
utter novelty of scene, and the dry, exhilarating 
air of the valley. One or two had already 
expressed themselves ready to live and die 
there ; another had written a glowing account 
to the Eastern press, depreciating all other 
scenery in Europe and America; and, under 
these circumstances, it was reasonably expected 
that Five Forks would do its duty, and equally 
Impress the stranger after its own fashion. 

Letters to this effect were sent from San 
Francisco by prominent capitalists there ; and. 


166 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


under the able superintendence of one of their 
agents, the visitors were taken in hand, shown 
‘•what was to be seen,” carefully restrained 
from observing what ought not to be visible, 
and so kept in a blissful and enthusiastic condi- 
tion. And so the graveyard of Five Forks, in 
which but two of the occupants had died natu- 
ral deaths; the dreary, ragged cabins on the 
hillsides, with their sad-eyed, cynical, broken- 
spirited occupants, toiling on day by day for 
a miserable pittance, and a fare that a self- 
respecting Eastern mechanic would have scorn- 
fully rejected, — were not a part of the Eastern 
visitors’ recollection. But the hoisting works 
and machinery of the “ Blazing Star Tunnel 
Company ” was, — the Blazing Star Tunnel Com- 
pany, whose “ gentlemanly superintendent ” had 
received private information from San Fran- 
cisco to do the “proper thing” for the party. 
Wherefore the valuable heaps of ore in the 
company’s works were shown ; the oblong bars 
of gold, ready for shipment, were playfully 
offered to the ladies who could lift and carry 
them away unaided ; and even the tunnel itself, 
gloomy, fateful, and peculiar, was shown as 
part of the experience ; and, in the noble lan- 
guage of one correspondent, “ The wealth of 
Five Forks, and the peculiar inducements that 
it offered to Eastern capitalists,” were estab 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 167 

listed beyond a doubt. And then occurred a 
little incident, which, as an unbiassed spectator, 
I am free to say offered no inducements to 
anybody whatever, but which, for its bearing 
upon the central figure of this veracious chroni- 
cle, I cannot pass over. 

It had become apparent to one or two more 
practical and sober-minded in the party, that 
certain portions of the “ Blazing Star ” tunnel 
(owing, perhaps, to the exigencies of a flat- 
tering annual dividend) were economically and 
imperfectly “ shored ” and supported, and were, 
consequently, unsafe, insecure, and to be avoided. 
Nevertheless, at a time when champagne corks 
were popping in dark corners, and enthusiastic 
voices and happy laughter rang through the 
half-lighted levels and galleries, there came a 
sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights 
dashed swiftly by in the direction of a distant 
part of the gallery, and then there was a sud- 
den sharp issuing of orders, and a dull, ominous 
rumble. Some of the visitors turned pale : one 
woman fainted. 

Something had happened. What ? “ Noth- 
ing ” (the speaker is fluent, but uneasy) — “ one 
of the gentlemen, in trying to dislodge a ‘ speci- 
men ’ from the wall, had knocked away a sup- 
port. There had been a ‘ cave ’ — the gentleman 
was caught, and buried below his shoulders. It 


168 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


was all light, they’d get him out in a moment 
— only it required great care to keep from ex- 
tending the ‘ cave.’ Didn’t know his name. 
It was that little man, the husband of that 
lively lady with the black eyes. Eh ! Hullo, 
there ! Stop her ! For God’s sake ! Not that 
way! She’ll fall from that shaft. She’ll be 
killed ! ” 

But the lively lady was already gone. With 
staring black eyes, imploringly trying to pierce 
the gloom, with hands and feet that sought to 
batter and break down the thick darkness, with 
incoherent cries and supplications following the 
moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she ran, and 
ran swiftly ! — ran over treacherous foundations, 
ran by yawning gulfs, ran past branching gal- 
leries and arches, ran wildly, ran despairingly, 
ran blindly, and at last ran into the arms of 
the “ Fool of Five Forks.” 

In an instant she caught at his hand. “ Oh, 
save him ! ” she cried. “ You belong here ; you 
know this dreadful place : bring me to him. 
Tell me where to go, and what to do, I implore 
you ! Quick, he is dying ! Come ! ” 

He raised his eyes to hers, and then, with a 
sudden cry, dropped the rope and crowbar he 
was carrying, and reeled against the wall. 

“ Annie ! ” he gasped slowly. “ Is it you ? ” 
She caught at both his hands, brought he? 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


169 


face to his with staring eyes, murmured, “ Good 
God, Cyrus ! ” and sank upon her knees before 
him. 

He tried to disengage the hand that she 
wrung with passionate entreaty. 

“ No, no ! Cyrus, you will forgive me — you 
will forget the past ! God has sent you here 
to-day. You will come with me. You will — 
you must — save him ! ” 

“ Save who ? ” cried Cyrus hoarsely. 

“ My husband ! ” 

The blow was so direct, so strong and over- 
whelming, that, even through her own stronger 
and more selfish absorption, she saw it in the 
face of the man, and pitied him. 

“ I thought — you — knew — it, ” she fal- 
tered. 

He did not speak, but looked at her with 
fixed, dumb eyes. And then the sound of dis- 
tant voices and hurrying feet started her again 
into passionate life. She once more caught his 
hand. 

“ O Cyrus, hear me ! If you have loved me 
through all these years, you will not fail me 
now. You must save him ! You can ! You 
ire brave and strong — you always were, Cyrus. 
You will save him, Cyrus, for my sake, for the 
sake of your love for me ! You will — I kno^f 
it. God bless you ! ” 


170 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


She rose as if to follow him ; but, at a ges- 
ture of command, she stood still. He picked 
up the rope and crowbar slowly, and in a dazed, 
blinded way, that, in her agony of impatience 
and alarm, seemed protracted to cruel infinity. 
Then he turned, and, raising her hand to his 
lips, kissed it slowly, looked at her again, and 
the next moment was gone. 

He did not return; for at the end of the 
next half-hour, when they laid before her the 
half-conscious, breathing body of her husband, 
safe and unharmed, but for exhaustion and some 
slight bruises, she learned that the worst fears 
of the workmen had been realized. In releasing 
him, a second cave had taken place. They had 
barely time to snatch away the helpless body 
of her husband, before the strong frame of his 
rescuer, Cyrus Hawkins, was struck and smitten 
down in his place. 

For two hours he lay there, crushed and 
broken-limbed, with a heavy beam lying across 
his breast, in sight of all, conscious and patient. 
For two hours they had labored around him, 
wildly, despairingly, hopefully, with the wills of 
gods and the strength of giants ; and at the end 
of that time they came to an upright timber, 
which rested its base upon the beam. There 
was a cry for axes, and one was already swing- 
ing in the air, when the dying man called to 
them feebly, — 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 


171 


“ Don’t cut that upright ! ” 

“ Why ? ” 

“ It will bring down the whole gallery with 
it.” 

“ How?” 

“ It’s one of the foundations of my house.” 

The axe fell from the workman’s hand, and 
with a blanched face he turned to his fellows. 
It was too true. They were in the uppermost 
gallery ; and the “ cave ” had taken place di- 
rectly below the new house. After a pause, 
the “ Fool ” spoke again more feebly. 

“ The lady — quick ! ” 

They brought her, — a wretched, fainting 
creature, with pallid face and streaming eyes, — 
and fell back as she bent her face above him. 

“ It was built for you, Annie darling,” he 
said in a hurried whisper, “ and has been wait- 
ing up there for you and me all these long days. 
It’s deeded to you, Annie ; and you must — live 
there — with Mm! He will not mind that I 
shall be always near you ; for it stands above 
— my grave.” 

And he was right. In a few minutes later, 
when he had passed away, they did not move 
him, but sat by his body all night with a torch 
at his feet and head. And the next day they 
walled up the gallery as a vault ; but they put 
no mark or any sign thereon, trusting, rather, to 


172 


THE FOOL OF FIVE FOLKS. 


the monument, that, bright and cheerful, rose 
above him in the sunlight of the hill. And 
those who heard the story said, “ This is not an 
evidence of death and gloom and sorrow, as are 
other monuments, but is a sign of life and 
light and hope, wherefore shall all know that 
he who lies under it is what men call — “a fool.” 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


I T was at a little mining-camp in the Cali- 
fornia Sierras that he first dawned upon me 
in all his grotesque sweetness. 

I had arrived early in the morning, but not in 
time to intercept the friend who was the object 
of my visit. He had gone “ prospecting,” — so 
they told me on the river, — and would not prob- 
ably return until late in the afternoon. They 
could not say what direction he had taken; 
they could not suggest that I would be likely to 
find him if I followed. But it was the general 
opinion that I had better wait. 

I looked around me. I was standing upon 
the bank of the river ; and apparently the only 
other human beings in the world were my inter- 
locutors, who were even then just disappearing 
from my horizon, down the steep bank, toward 
the river’s dry bed. I approached the edge of 
the bank. 

Where could I wait ? 

Oh ! anywhere, — down with them on the river- 
bar, where they were working, if I liked. Or I 

173 


174 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


could make myself at home in any of those 
cabins that I found lying round loose. Or per- 
haps it would be cooler and pleasanter for me 
in my friend’s cabin on the hill. Did 1 1 see 
those three large sugar-pines, and, a little to 
the right, a canvas roof and chimney, over the 
bushes? Well, that was my friend’s, — that 
was Dick Sylvester’s cabin. I could stake my 
horse in that little hollow, and just hang round 
there till he came. I would find some books in 
the shanty. I could amuse myself with them ; 
or I could play with the baby. 

Do what ? 

But they had already gone. I leaned over 
the bank, and called after their vanishing 
figures, — 

“ What did you say I could do ? ” 

The answer floated slowly up on the hot, 
sluggish air, — 

“ Pla-a-y with the ba-by.” 

The lazy echoes took it up, and tossed it lan 
guidly from hill to hill, until Bald Mountain 
opposite made some incoherent remark about 
the baby ; and then all was still. 

I must have been mistaken. My friend was 
not a man of family ; there was not a woman 
within forty miles of the river camp ; he never 
was so passionately devoted to children as tc 
import a luxury so expensive. I must have 
been mistaken. 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


175 


I turned my horse’s head toward the hill. 
As we slowly climbed the narrow trail, the little 
settlement might have been some exhumed 
Pompeiian suburb, so deserted and silent were 
its habitations. The open doors plainly dis- 
closed each rudely-furnished interior, — the 
rough pine table, with the scant equipage of 
the morning meal still standing; the wooden 
bunk, with its tumbled and dishevelled blankets. 
A golden lizard, the very genius of desolate 
stillness, had stopped breathless upon the 
threshold of one cabin; a squirrel peeped im- 
pudently into the window of another ; a wood- 
pecker, with the general flavor of undertaking 
which distinguishes that bird, withheld his 
sepulchral hammer from the coffin-lid of the 
roof on which he was professionally engaged, 
as we passed. For a moment I half regretted 
that I had not accepted the invitation to the 
river-bed ; but, the next moment, a breeze 
swept up the long, dark canon, and the waiting 
files of the pines beyond bent toward me in sal- 
utation. I think my horse understood, as well 
as myself, that it was the cabins that made the 
solitude human, and therefore unbearable ; for 
he quickened his pace, and with a gentle trot 
brought me to the edge of the wood, and the 
three pines that stood like vedettes before the 
Sylvester outpost. 


176 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


Unsaddling my horse in the little hollow, 1 
unslung the long riata from the saddle-bow, 
and, tethering him to a young sapling, turned 
toward the cabin. But I had gone only a few 
steps, when I heard a quick trot behind me ; and 
poor Pomposo, with every fibre tingling with 
fear, was at my heels. I looked hurriedly 
around. The breeze had died away ; and only 
an occasional breath from the deep-chested 
woods, more like a long sigh than any articulate 
sound, or the dry singing of a cicala in the 
heated canon, were to be heard. I examined 
the ground carefully for rattlesnakes, but in 
vain. Yet here was Pomposo shivering from 
his arched neck to his sensitive haunches, his 
very flanks pulsating with terror. I soothed 
him as well as I could, and then walked to the 
edge of the wood, and peered into its dark 
recesses. The bright flash of a bird’s wing, or 
the quick dart of a squirrel, was all I saw. I 
confess it was with something of superstitious 
expectation that I again turned towards the 
cabin. A fairy-child, attended by Titania and 
her train, lying in an expensive cradle, would 
not have surprised me : a Sleeping Beauty, 
whose awakening would have repeopled these 
solitudes with life and energy, I am afraid 1 
began to confidently look for, and would have 
kissed without hesitation. 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


177 


But I found none of these. Here was the 
evidence of my friend’s taste and refinement, in 
the hearth swept scrupulously clean, in the pic- 
turesque arrangement of the fur-skins that cov- 
ered the floor and furniture, and the striped 
serdpe 1 lying on the wooden couch. Here were 
the walls fancifully papered with illustrations 
from “ The London News here was the wood- 
cut portrait of Mr. Emerson over the chimney, 
quaintly framed with blue-jays’ wings; here were 
his few favorite books on the swinging-shelf ; 
and here, lying upon the couch, the latest copy 
of “ Punch.” Dear Dick ! The flour-sack was 
sometimes empty ; but the gentle satirist seldom 
missed his weekly visit. 

I threw myself on the couch, and tried to 
read. But I soon exhausted my interest in my 
friend’s library, and lay there staring through 
the open door on the green hillside beyond. The 
breeze again sprang up ; and a delicious coolness, 
mixed with the rare incense of the woods, stole 
through the cabin. The slumbrous droning of 
bumblebees outside the canvas roof, the faint 
cawing of rooks on the opposite mountain, and 
the fatigue of my morning ride, began to droop 
my eyelids. I pulled the serdpe over me, as a 


i A fine Mexican blanket, used as an outer garment fo# 
riding 


1T8 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


precaution against the freshening mountain 
breeze, and in a few moments was asleep. 

I do not remember how long I slept. I must 
have been conscious, however, during my slum- 
ber, of my inability to keep myself covered by 
the serdpe ; for I awoke once or twice, clutching 
it with a despairing hand as it was disappearing 
over the foot of the couch. Then I became 
suddenly aroused to the fact that my efforts to 
retain it were* resisted by some equally persistent 
force ; and, letting it go, I was horrified at see- 
ing it swiftly drawn under the couch. At this 
point I sat up, completely awake ; for immedi- 
ately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated 
muff began to emerge from under the couch. 
Presently it appeared fully, dragging the serdpe 
after it. There was no mistaking it now: it 
was a baby-bear, — a mere suckling, it was true, 
a helpless roll of fat and fur, but unmistakably 
a grizzly cub ! 

I cannot recall any thing more irresistibly 
ludicrous than its aspect as it slowly raised its 
small, wondering eyes to mine. It was so much 
taller on its haunches than its shoulders, its 
forelegs were so disproportionately small, that, 
in walking, its hind-feet invariably took prece- 
dence. It was perpetually pitching forward over 
; ts pointed, inoffensive nose, and recovering it- 
self always, after these involuntary somersaults 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


179 


with the gravest astonishment. To add to its 
preposterous appearance, one of its hind-feet 
was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester’s, into which 
it had accidentally and inextricably stepped. 
As this somewhat impeded its first impulse to 
fly, it turned to me ; and then, possibly recog- 
nizing in the stranger the same species as its 
master, it paused. Presently it slowly raised 
itself on its hind-legs, and vaguely and depre- 
catingly waved a baby-paw, fringed with little 
hooks of steel. I took the paw, and shook it 
gravely. From that moment we were friends. 
The little affair of the serdpe was forgotten. 

Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement 
our friendship by an act of delicate courtesy. 
Following the direction of his eyes, I had no 
difficulty in finding on a shelf near the ridge- 
pole the sugar-box and the square lumps of 
white sugar that even the poorest miner is 
never without. While he was eating them, I had 
time to examine him more closely. His body 
was a silky, dark, but exquisitely-modulated 
gray, deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. 
His fur was excessively long, thick, and soft as 
eider-down ; the cushions of flesh beneath per- 
fectly infantine m their texture and contour. 
He was so very young, that the palms of his 
half-human feet were still tender as a baby’s. 
Except for the bright blue, steely hooks, half 


180 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


sheatked in his little toes, there was not a single 
harsh outline or detail in his plump figure. He 
was as free from angles as one of Leda's off- 
spring. Your caressing hand sank away in his 
fur with dreamy languor. To look at him long 
was an intoxication of the senses ; to pat him 
was a wild delirium ; to embrace him, an utter 
demoralization of the intellectual faculties. 

When he had- finished the sugar, he rolled 
out of the door with a half-diffident, half- 
inviting look in his eyes as if he expected me 
to follow. I did so ; but the sniffing and snort- 
ing of the keen-scented Pomposo in the hollow 
not only revealed the cause of his former terror, 
but decided me to take another direction. 
After a moment’s hesitation, he concluded to go 
with me, although I am satisfied, from a certain 
impish look in his eye, that he fully understood 
and rather enjoyed the fright of Pomposo. As 
he rolled along at my side, with a gait not un- 
like a drunken sailor, I discovered that his long 
hair concealed a leather collar around his neck, 
which bore for its legend the single word 
“ Baby ! ” I recalled the mysterious suggestion 
of the two miners. This, then, was the “ baby ” 
with whom I was to “ play.” 

How we “ played ; ” how Baby allowed me 
to roll him down hill, crawling and puffing up 
again each time with perfect good-humor ; how 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


181 


he climbed a young sapling after my Panama 
hat, which I had “ shied ” into one of the top- 
most branches ; how, after getting it, he refused 
to descend until it suited his pleasure; how, 
when he did come down, he persisted in 
walking about on three legs, carrying my hat, a 
crushed and shapeless mass, clasped to his breast 
with the remaining one ; how I missed him at 
last, and finally discovered him seated on a 
table in one of the tenantless cabins, with a 
bottle of sirup between his paws, vainly 
endeavoring to extract its contents, — these and 
other details of that eventful day I shall not 
weary the reader with now. Enough that, when 
Dick Sylvester returned, I was pretty well 
fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, an im- 
mense bolster, at the foot of the couch, asleep. 
Sylvester’s first words after our greeting 
were, — 

“ Isn’t he delicious ? ” 

“ Perfectly. Where did you get him ?” 

“Lying under his dead mother, five miles 
from here,” said Dick, lighting his pipe. 
u Knocked her over at fifty yards: perfectly 
clean shot; never moved afterwards. Baby 
crawled out, scared, but unhurt. She must 
have been carrying him in her mouth, and 
dropped him when she faced me ; for he wasn’t 
more than three days old, and not steady on bis 


182 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


pins. He takes tlie only milk that comes to the 
settlement, brought up by Adams Express at 
seven o’clock every morning. They say he 
looks like me. Do you think so ? ” asked Dick 
with perfect gravity, stroking his hay-colored 
mustachios, and evidently assuming his best 
expression. 

I took leave of the baby early the next morn- 
ing in Sylvester’s cabin, and, out of respect to 
Pomposo’s feelings, rode by without any post- 
script of expression. But the night before I 
had made Sylvester solemnly swear, that, in the 
event of any separation between himself and 
Baby, it should revert to me. “ At the same 
time,” he had added, “ it’s only fair to say that 
I don’t think of dying just yet, old fellow ; and 
I don’t know of any thing else that would part 
the cub and me.” 

Two months after this conversation, as I was 
turning over the morning’s mail at my office in 
San Francisco, I noticed a letter bearing Syl- 
vester’s familiar hand. But it was post-marked 
‘ Stockton,” and I opened it with some anxiety 
at once. Its contents were as follows : — 

“O Frank! — Don’t you remember what we agreed 
upon anent the baby? Well, consider me as dead for the 
aext six months, or gone where cubs can’t follow me, — 
East. I know you love the baby ; but do you think, dear 
boy, — now, really, do you think you could be a father 


BABY SYLVESTEB. 


183 


to it? Consider this well. You are young, thoughtless, 
well-meaning enough; but dare you take upon yourself 
the functions of guide, genius, or guardian to one so 
young and guileless? Could you be the Mentor to this 
Telemachus ? Think of the temptations of a metropolis. 
Look at the question well, and let me know speedily ; for 
I’ve got him as far as this place, and he’s kicking up an 
awful row in the hotel-yard, and rattling his chain like a 
maniac. Let me know by telegraph at once. 

“ Sylvestek. 

“ P.S. — Of course he’s grown a little, and doesn’t take 
things always as quietly as he did. He dropped rather 
heavily on two of Watson’s ‘purps’ last week, and 
snatched old Watson himself bald headed, for interfer- 
ing. You remember Watson ? For an intelligent man, he 
knows very little of California fauna. How are you 
fixed for bears on Montgomery Street, I mean in regard 
to corrals and things ? S. 

“ P.P.S. — He’s got some new tricks. The boys have 
been teaching him to put up his hands with them. He 
slings an ugly left. S.” 

I am afraid that my desire to possess myself 
of Baby overcame all other considerations ; and I 
telegraphed an affirmative at once to Sylvester. 
When I reached my lodgings late that after- 
noon, my landlady was awaiting me with a 
telegram. It was two linSs from Sylvester, — 

“ All right. Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a 
lather to him. S.” 


It was due, then, at one o’clock that night. 


L84 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


For a moment I was staggered at my own pre- 
cipitation. I had as yet made no preparations, 
had said nothing to my landlady about her new 
guest. I expected to arrange every thing in 
time; and now, through Sylvester’s indecent 
haste, that time had been shortened twelve 
hours. 

Something, however, must be done at once. 
I turned to Mrs. Brown. I had great reliance 
in her maternal instincts: I had that still 
greater reliance common to our sex in the 
general tender-heartedness of pretty women. 
But I confess I was alarmed. Yet, with a 
feeble smile, I tried to introduce the subject 
with classical ease and lightness. I even said, 
44 If Shakspeare’s Athenian clown, Mrs. Brown, 
believed that a lion among ladies was a dread- 
ful thing, what must” — But here I broke 
down ; for Mrs. Brown, with the awful intuition 
of her sex, I saw at once was more occupied 
with my manner than my speech. So I tried a 
business brusquerie , and, placing the telegram 
in her hand, said hurriedly , 44 We must do some- 
thing about this at once. It’s perfectly absurd ; 
but he will be here at one to-night. Beg 
thousand pardons ; but business prevented my 
speaking before ” — and paused out of breath 
and courage. 

Mrs. Brown read the telegram gravely, lifted 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


185 


her pretty eyebrows, turned the paper over, and 
looked on the other side, and then, in a remote 
and chilling voice,, asked me if she understood 
me to say that the mother was coming also. 

“ Oh, dear no ! ” I exclaimed with considerable 
relief. “ The mother is dead, you know. Syl- 
vester, that is my friend who sent this, shot 
her when the baby was only three days old.” 
But the expression of Mrs. Brown’s face at this 
moment was so alarming, that I saw that noth- 
ing but the fullest explanation would save me. 
Hastily, and I fear not very coherently, I told 
her all. 

She relaxed sweetly. She said I had fright- 
ened her with my talk about lions. Indeed, I 
think my picture of poor Baby, albeit a trifle 
highly colored, touched her motherly heart. 
She was even a little vexed at what she called 
Sylvester’s “ hardheartedness.” Still I was not 
without some apprehension. It was two months 
since I had seen him ; and Sylvester’s vague 
allusion to his “ slinging an ugly left ” pained 
me. I looked at sympathetic little Mrs. Brown ; 
and the thought of Watson’s pups covered me 
with guilty confusion. 

Mrs. Brown had agreed to sit up with me 
until he arrived. One o’clock came, but no 
Baby. Two o’clock, three o’clock, passed. It 
was almost four when there was a wild clatter 


186 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


of horses’ hoofs outside, and with a jerk a 
wagon stopped at the door. In an instant I 
had opened it, and confronted a stranger. Al- 
most at the same moment, the horses attempted 
to run away with the wagon. 

The stranger’s appearance was, to say the 
least, disconcerting. His clothes were badly 
torn and frayed ; his linen sack hung from his 
shoulders like a herald’s apron; one of his 
hands was bandaged ; his face scratched ; and 
there was no hat on his dishevelled head. To 
add to the general effect, he had evidently 
sought relief from his woes in drink; and he 
swayed from side to side as he clung to the 
door-handle, and, in a very thick voice, stated 
that he had “ suthin ” for me outside. When 
he had finished, the horses made another plunge. 

Mrs. Brown thought they must be frightened 
at something. 

“Frightened!” laughed the stranger with 
bitter irony. “ Oh, no ! Hossish ain’t frightened ! 
On’y ran away four timesh cornin’ here. Oh, 
no ! Nobody’s frightened. Every thin’s all ri\ 
Ain’t it, Bill ? ” he said, addressing the driver. 
“ On’y been overboard twish ; knocked down a 
hatchway once. Thash nothin’ ! On’y two 
men unner doctor’s han’s at Stockton. Thash 
nothin’ ! Six hunner dollarsh cover all dam 
mish.” 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


187 

I was too much disheartened to reply, but 
moved toward the wagon. The stranger eyed 
me with an astonishment that almost sobered 
him. 

“ Do you reckon to tackle that animile your- 
self?” he asked, as he surveyed me from head 
to foot. 

I did not speak, but, with an appearance of 
boldness I was far from feeling, walked to the 
wagon, and called “ Baby ! ” 

“ All ri\ Cash loose them straps, Bill, and 
stan’ clear.” 

The straps were cut loose ; and Baby, the re 
morseless, the terrible, quietly tumbled to the 
ground, and, rolling to my side, rubbed his 
foolish head against me. 

I think the astonishment of the two men was 
beyond any vocal expression. Without a word, 
the drunken stranger got into the wagon, and 
drove away. 

And Baby ? He had grown, it is true, a trifle 
larger; but he was thin, and bore the marks 
of evident ill usage. His beautiful coat was 
matted and unkempt; and his claws, those 
bright steel hooks, had been ruthlessly pared to 
the quick. His eyes were furtive and restless ; 
and the old expression of stupid good humor 
had changed to one of intelligent distrust. His 
intercourse with mankind had evidently quick 


188 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


ened his intellect, without broadening his moral 
nature. 

I had great difficulty in keeping Mrs. Brown 
from smothering him in blankets, and ruining 
his digestion with the delicacies of her larder ; 
but I at last got him completely rolled up in 
the corner of my room, and asleep. I lay awake 
some time later with plans for his future. I 
finally determined to take him to Oakland — 
where I had built a little cottage, and always 
spent my Sundays — the very next day. And 
in the midst of a rosy picture of domestic 
felicity, I fell asleep. 

When I awoke, it was broad day. My eyes 
at once sought the corner where Baby had 
been lying ; but he was gone. I sprang from 
the bed, looked under it, searched the closet, 
but in vain. The door was still locked; but 
there were the marks of his blunted claws upon 
the sill of the window that I had forgotten to 
close. He had evidently escaped that way. 
But where? The window opened upon a 
balcony, to which the only other entrance was 
through the hall. He must be still in the 
house. 

My hand was already upon the bell-rope ; but 
I stayed it in time. If he had not made him- 
self known, why should I disturb the house ? I 
dressed myself hurriedly, and slipped into the 


BABE - SYLVESTER. 


189 


hall. The first object that met my eyes was a 
boot lying upon the stairs. It bore the marks 
of Baby’s teeth ; and, as I looked along the hall, 
I saw too plainly that the usual array of freshly- 
blackened boots and shoes before the lodgers’ 
doors was not there. As I ascended the stairs, 
I found another, but with the blacking care- 
fully licked off. On the third floor were two 
or three more boots, slightly mouthed; but at 
this point Baby’s taste for blacking had evident- 
ly palled. A little farther on was a ladder, 
leading to an open scuttle. I mounted the 
ladder, and reached the flat roof, that formed a 
continuous level over the row of houses to the 
corner of the street. Behind the chimney on 
the very last roof, something was lurking. It 
was the fugitive Baby. He was covered with 
dust and dirt and fragments of glass. But he 
was sitting on his hind-legs, and was eating an 
enormous slab of peanut candy, with a look of 
mingled guilt and infinite satisfaction. He 
even, I fancied, slightly stroked his stomach 
with his disengaged fore-paw as I approached. 
He knew that I was looking for him ; and the 
expression of his eye said plainly, “ The past, 
at least, is secure.” 

I hurried him, with the evidences of his 
guilt, back to the scuttle, and descended on 
tiptoe to the floor beneath. Providence favored 


190 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


us: I met no one on the stairs; and his own 
cushioned tread was inaudible. I think he was 
conscious of the dangers of detection ; for he 
even forebore to breathe, or much less chew the 
last mouthful he had taken ; and he skulked 
at my side with the sirup dropping from his 
motionless jaws. I think he would have silently 
choked to death just then, for my sake ; and 
it was not until I had reached my room again, 
and threw myself panting on the sofa, that I 
saw how near strangulation he had been. He 
gulped once or twice apologetically, and then 
walked to the corner of his own accord, and 
rolled himself up like an immense sugarplum, 
sweating remorse and treacle at every pore. 

I locked him in when I went to breakfast, 
when I found Mrs. Brown’s lodgers in a state 
of intense excitement over certain mysterious 
events of the night before, and the dreadful 
revelations of the morning. It appeared that 
burglars had entered the block from the scut- 
tles; that, being suddenly alarmed, they had 
quitted our house without committing any 
depredation, dropping even the boots they had 
collected in the halls; but that a desperate 
attempt had been made to force the till in the 
confectioner’s shop on the corner, and that the 
glass show-cases had been ruthlessly smashed. 
A courageous servant in No. 4 had seen a 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


191 


masked burglar, on his hands and knees, at- 
tempting to enter their scuttle; but, on her 
shouting, “ Away wid yees ! ” he instantly fled. 

I sat through this recital with cheeks that- 
burned uncomfortably; nor was I the less 
embarrassed, on raising my eyes, to meet Mrs. 
Brown’s fixed curiously and mischievously on 
mine. As soon as I could make my escape 
from the table, I did so, and, running rapidly 
up stairs, sought refuge from any possible 
inquiry in my own room. Baby was still 
asleep in the comer. It would not be safe to 
remove him until the lodgers had gone down 
town; and I was revolving in my mind the 
expediency of keeping him until night veiled 
his obtrusive eccentricity from the public eye, 
when there came a cautious tap at my door. 
I opened it. Mrs. Brown slipped in quietly, 
closed the door softly, stood with her back 
against it, and her hand on the knob, and beck- 
oned me mysteriously towards her. Then she 
asked in a low voice, — 

“ Is hair-dye poisonous ? ” 

I was too confounded to speak. 

“ Oh, do ! you know what I mean,” she said 
impatiently. “ This stuff.” She produced sud- 
denly from behind her a bottle with a Greek 
label so long as to run two or three times 
spirally around it from top to bottom. “ He 


192 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


says it isn’t a dye : it’s a vegetable preparation, 
for invigorating ” — 

“ Who says ? ” I asked despairingly. 

“ Why, Mr. Parker, of course ! ” said Mrs. 
Brown severely, with the air of having re- 
peated the name a great many times, — “the 
old gentleman in the room above. The simple 
question I want to ask,” she continued with 
the calm manner of one who has just convicted 
another of gross ambiguity of language, “is 
only this : If some of this stuff were put in a 
saucer, and left carelessly on the table, and a 
child, or a baby, or a cat, or any young animal, 
should come in at the window, and drink it up, 
— a whole saucer full, — because it had a sweet 
taste, would it be likely to hurt them ? ” 

I cast an anxious glance at Baby, sleeping 
peacefully in the corner, and a very grateful 
one at Mrs. Brown, and said I didn’t think it 
would. 

“Because,” said Mrs. Brown loftily as she 
opened the door, “ I thought, if it was poison- 
ous, remedies might be used in time. Because,” 
she added suddenly, abandoning her lofty man- 
ner, and wildly rushing to the corner with a 
frantic embrace of the unconscious Baby, 
“because, if any nasty stuff should turn its 
booful hair a horrid green, or a naughty pink, it 
would break its own muzzer’s heart, it would ! ’ 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


193 


But, before I could assure Mrs. Brown of the 
inefficiency of hair-dye as an internal applica- 
tion, she had darted from the room. 

That night, with the secrecy of defaulters, 
Baby and I decamped from Mrs. Brown’s. Dis- 
trusting the too emotional nature of that noble 
animal, the horse, I had recourse to a hand- 
cart, drawn by a stout Irishman, to convey my 
charge to the ferry. Even then, Baby refused 
to go, unless I walked by the cart, and at times 
rode in it. 

“ I wish,” said Mrs. Brown, as she stood by 
the door, wrapped in an immense shawl, and 
saw us depart, “ I wish it looked less solemn, — 
less like a pauper’s funeral.” 

I must admit, that, as I walked by the cart 
that night, I felt very much as if I were accom- 
panying the remains of some humble friend to 
his last resting-place; and that, when I was 
obliged to. ride in it, I never could entirely con- 
vince myself that I was not helplessly overcome 
by liquor, or the victim of an accident, en route 
to the hospital. But at last we reached the 
ferry. On the boat, I think no one discovered 
Baby, except a drunken man, who approached 
me to ask for a light for his cigar, but who 
suddenly dropped it, and fled in dismay to the 
gentlemen’s cabin, where his incoherent ravings 
were luckily taken for the earlier indications of 
ielirium tremens . 


194 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


It was nearly midnight when I reached my 
little cottage on the outskirts of Oakland ; and 
it was with a feeling of relief and security that 
I entered, locked the door, and turned him 
loose in the hall, satisfied that henceforward 
his depredations would be limited to my own 
property. He was very quiet that night ; and 
after he had tried to mount the hat-rack, under 
the mistaken impression that it was intended 
for his own gymnastic exercise, and knocked 
all the hats off, he went peaceably to sleep on 
the rug. 

In a week, with the exercise afforded him by 
the run of a large, carefully-boarded enclosure, 
he recovered his health, strength, spirits, and 
much of his former beauty. His presence was 
unknown to my neighbors, although it was 
noticeable that horses invariably “shied” in 
passing to the windward of my house, and that 
the baker and milkman had great difficulty in 
the delivery of their wares in the morning, and 
indulged in unseemly and unnecessary profanity 
in so doing. 

At the end of the week, I determined to invite 
a few friends to see the Baby, and to that pur- 
pose wrote a number of formal invitations. 
After descanting, at some length, on the great 
expense and danger attending his capture and 
training, I offered a programme of the perform 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


195 


Mice, of the “Infant Phenomenon of Sierran 
Solitudes,” drawn up into the highest profes- 
sional profusion of alliteration and capital let- 
ters. A few extracts will give the reader some 
idea of his educational progress : — 

1 He will, rolled up in a Round Ball, roll down the 
Wood- Shed Rapidly, illustrating His manner of 
Escaping from His Enemy in His Native Wilds. 

2. He will Ascend the Well-Pole, and remove from the 

Very Top a Hat, and as much of the Crown and 
Brim thereof, as May be Permitted. 

3. He will perform in a pantomime, descriptive of the 

Conduct of the Big Bear, The Middle-Sized Bear, 
and The Little Bear of the Popular Nursery Legend. 

4. He will shake his chain Rapidly, showing his Manner 

of striking Dismay and Terror in the Breasts of 
Wanderers in Ursine Wildernesses. 

The morning of the exhibition came; but 
an hour before the performance the wretched 
Baby was missing. The Chinese cook could 
not indicate his whereabouts. I searched the 
premises thoroughly; and then, in despair, 
took my hat, and hurried out into the narrow 
lane that led toward the open fields and the 
woods beyond. But I found no trace nor track 
pf Baby Sylvester. I returned, after an hour’s 
fruitless search, to find my guests already 
assembled on the rear veranda. I briefly re 
iounted my disappointment, my probable loss, 
and begged their assistance. 


196 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


“ Why,’’ said a Spanish friend, who prided 
himself on his accurate knowledge of English, 
to Barker, who seemed to be trying vainly to 
rise from his reclining position on the veranda, 
“ why do you not disengage yourself from the 
veranda of our friend? And why, in the 
name of Heaven, do you attach to yourself so 
much of this thing, and make to yourself such 
unnecessary contortion? Ah,” he continued, 
suddenly withdrawing one of his own feet from 
the veranda with an evident effort, “I am 
myself attached ! Surely it is something here ! ” 

It evidently was. My guests were all rising 
with difficulty. The floor of the veranda was 
covered with some glutinous substance. It 
was — sirup ! 

I saw it all in a flash. I ran to the barn. 
The keg of “ golden sirup,” purchased only the 
day before, lay empty upon the floor. There 
were sticky tracks all over the enclosure, but 
still no Baby. 

“ There’s something moving the ground over 
there by that pile of dirt,” said Barker. 

He was right. The earth was shaking in one 
corner of the enclosure like an earthquake. I 
approached cautiously. I saw, what I had not 
before noticed, that the ground was thrown 
up ; and there, in the middle of an immense 
grave-like cavity, crouched Baby Sylvester, stil 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


197 


iigging, and slowly but surely sinking from 
Bight in a mass of dust and clay. 

What were his intentions ? Whether he was 
stung by remorse, and wished to hide himself 
from my reproachful eyes, or whether he was 
simply trying to dry his sirup-besmeared coat, 
I never shall know ; for that day, alas ! was his 
last with me. 

He was pumped upon for two hours, at the 
end of which time he still yielded a thin 
treacle. He was then taken, and carefully 
inwrapped in blankets, and locked up in the 
store-room. The next morning he was gone ! 
The lower portion of the window sash and pane 
were gone too. His successful experiments on 
the fragile texture of glass at the confectioner’s, 
on the first day of his entrance to civilization, 
had not been lost upon him. His first essay at 
combining cause and effect ended in his escape. 

Where he went, where he hid, who captured 
him, if he did not succeed in reaching the foot- 
hills beyond Oakland, even the offer of a large 
reward, backed by the efforts of an intelligent 
police, could not discover. I never saw him 
again from that day until — 

Did I see him? I was in a horse-car on 
Sixth Avenue, a few days ago, when the horses 
suddenly became unmanageable, and left the 
track for the sidewalk, amid the oaths and exe- 


198 


BABY SYLVESTER. 


orations of the driver. Immediately in front 
of the car a crowd had gathered around two 
performing bears and a showman. One of the 
animals, thin, emaciated, and the mere wreck 
of his native strength, attracted my attention. 
I endeavored to attract his. He turned a pair 
of bleared, sightless eyes in my direction ; but 
there was no sign of recognition. I leaned 
from the car-window, and called softly, “ Baby ! ” 
But he did not heed. I closed the window. 
The car was just moving on, when he suddenly 
turned, and, either by accident or design, thrust 
a callous paw through the glass. 

“ It’s worth a dollar and half to put in a new 
pane,” said the conductor, “if folks will play 
with bears ! ” — 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


I N 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very 
pretty woman. She had a quantity of light 
chestnut hair, a good figure, a dazzling complex- 
ion, and a certain languid grace which passed 
easily for gentle womanliness. She always dressed 
becomingly, and in what Fiddletown accepted 
as the latest fashion. She had only two blem- 
ishes : one of her velvety eyes, when examined 
closely, had a slight cast ; and her left cheek 
bore a small scar left by a single drop of vitriol 
— happily the only drop of an entire phial — 
thrown upon her by one of her own jealous sex, 
that reached the pretty face it was intended to 
mar. But, when the observer had studied the 
eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, fie was 
generally incapacitated for criticism ; and even 
the scar on her cheek was thought by some to 
add piquancy to her smile. The youthful edit- 
or of “ The Fiddletown Avalanche ” had said 
nrivately that it was 44 an exaggerated dimple.” 
Col. Starbottle was instantly 44 reminded of the 
beautifying patches of the days of Queen Anne, 


200 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

but more particularly, sir, of the blankest beau* 
tiful women, that, blank you, you ever laid your 
two blank eyes upon, — a Creole woman, sir, in 
New Orleans. And this woman had a scar, — a 
line extending, blank me, from her eye to her 
blank chin. And this woman, sir, thrilled you, 
sir; maddened you, sir; absolutely sent your 
blank soul to perdition with her blank fascina- 
tion ! And one day I said to her, 4 Celeste, how 
in blank did you come by that beautiful scar, 
blank you ? 9 And she said to me, ‘ Star, there 
isn’t another white man that I’d confide in but 
you ; but I made that scar myself, purposely, I 
did, blank me.’ These were her very words, 
sir, and perhaps you think it a blank lie, sir ; 
but I’ll put up any blank sum you can name 
and prove it, blank me.” 

Indeed, most of the male population of Fid- 
dletown were or had been in love with her. Of 
this number, about one-half believed that their 
love was returned, with the exception, possibly, 
of her own husband. He alone had been known 
to express scepticism. 

The name of the gentleman who enjoyed this 
infelicitous distinction was Tretherick. He had 
been divorced from an excellent wife to marry 
this Fiddletown enchantress. She, also, had been 
divorced ; but it was hinted that some previous 
experiences of hers in that legal formality had 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 201 

made it perhaps less novel, and probably less 
sacrificial. I would not have it inferred from 
this that she was deficient in sentiment, or 
devoid of its highest moral expression. Her 
intimate friend had written (on the occasion of 
her second divorce), “ The cold world does not 
understand Clara yet ; ” and Col. Starbottle had 
remarked blankly, that with the exception of 
a single woman in Opelousas Parish, La., she 
had more soul than the whole caboodle of 
them put together. Few indeed could read 
those lines entitled “ Infelissimus,” commencing, 
“ Why waves no cypress o’er this brow ? ” origi 
nally published in “ The Avalanche, ” over the 
signature of “ The Lady Clare,” without feeling 
the tear of sensibility tremble on his eyelids, or 
the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his 
cheek, at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity 
of “ The l)utch Flat Intelligencer,” which the 
next week had suggested the exotic character 
of the cypress, and its entire absence from Fid- 
dletown, as a reasonable answer to the query. 

Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her 
feelings in a metrical manner, and deliver them 
to the cold world through the medium of the 
newspapers, that first attracted the attention of 
Tretherick. Several poems descriptive of the 
effects of California scenery upon a too sensitive 
soul, and of the vague yearnings for the infinite, 


202 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


which an enforced study of the heartlessness of 
California society produced in the poetic breast, 
impressed Mr. Tretherick, who was then driving 
a six-mule freight-wagon between Knight’s 
Ferry and Stockton, to seek out the unknown 
poetess. Mr. Tretherick was himself dimly 
conscious of a certain hidden sentiment in his 
own nature ; and it is possible that some reflec- 
tions on the vanity of his pursuit, — he supplied 
several mining-camps with whiskey and tobacco, 
— in conjunction with the dreariness of the 
dusty plain on which he habitually drove, may 
have touched some chord in sympathy with this 
sensitive woman. Howbeit, after a brief court- 
ship, — as brief as was consistent with some 
previous legal formalities, — they were married ; 
and Mr. Tretherick brought his blushing bride 
to Fiddletown, or “ Fiddletown,” as Mrs. Treth- 
erick preferred to call it in her poems. 

The union was not a felicitous one. It was 
not long before Mr. Tretherick discovered that 
the sentiment he had fostered while freighting 
between Stockton and Knight’s Ferry was dif- 
ferent from that which his wife had evolved from 
the contemplation of California scenery and 
her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, 
this caused him to beat her; and she, being 
equally faulty in deduction, was impelled to a 
certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same 


AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 


208 


premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to drink, 
and Mrs. Tretherick to contribute regularly to 
the columns of 44 The Avalanche.” It was at 
this time that Col. Starbottle discovered a simi- 
larity in Mrs. Tretherick’s verse to the genius 
of Sappho, and pointed it out to*the citizens of 
Fiddletown in a two-columned criticism, signed 
“ A. S.,” also published in 44 The Avalanche,” 
and supported by extensive quotation. As 
“ The Avalanche ” did not possess a font of 
Greek type, the editor was obliged to reproduce 
the Leucadian numbers in the ordinary Roman 
letter, to the intense disgust of Col. Starbottle, 
and the vast delight of Fiddletown, who saw fit 
to accept the text as an excellent imitation of 
Choctaw, — a language with which the colonel, 
as a whilom resident of the Indian Territories, 
was supposed to be familiar. Indeed, the next 
week’s 44 Intelligencer ” contained some vile 
doggerel, supposed to be an answer to Mrs. 
Tretherick’s poem, ostensibly written by the 
wife of a Digger Indian chief, accompanied by 
a glowing eulogium, signed 44 A. S. S.” 

The result of this jocularity was briefly given 
in a later copy of 44 The Avalanche.” 44 An un- 
fortunate rencounter took place on Monday last, 
between the Hon. Jackson Flash of 44 The Dutch 
Flat Intelligencer ” and the well-known Col. 
Btarbottle of this place, in front of the Eureka 


204 AST EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

Saloon. Two shots were fired by the parties 
without injury to either, although it is said that 
a passing Chinaman received fifteen buckshot in 
the calves of his legs from the colonel’s double- 
barrelled shot-gun, which were not intended 
for him. John' will learn to keep out of the 
way of Melican man’s fire-arms hereafter. The 
cause of the affray is not known, although it is 
hinted that there is a lady in the case. The 
rumor that points to a well-known and beautiful 
poetess whose lucubrations have often graced 
our columns seems to gain credence from those 
that are posted.” 

Meanwhile the passiveness displayed by Treth 
erick under these trying circumstances was 
fully appreciated in the gulches. “ The old 
man’s head is level,” said one long-booted phi- 
losopher. “ Ef the colonel kills Flash, Mrs. 
Tretherick is avenged : if Flash drops the colo- 
nel, Tretherick is all right. Either way, he’s 
got a sure thing.” During this delicate condi- 
tion of affairs, Mrs. Tretherick one day left her 
husband’s home, and took refuge at the Fiddle- 
town Hotel, with only the clothes she had on 
her back. Here she staid for several weeks, 
during which period it is only justice to say 
that she bore herself with the strictest pro- 
priety. 

Jt was a clear morning in early spring that 


A N EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. *^05 

Mrs. Tretherick, unattended, left the hotel, and 
walked down the narrow street toward the 
fringe of dark pines which indicated the extreme 
limits of Fiddletown. The few loungers at 
that early hour were pre-occupied with the 
departure of the Wingdown coach at the other 
extremity of the street; and Mrs. Tretherick 
reached the suburbs of the settlement without 
discomposing observation. Here she took a 
cross street or road, running at right angles with 
the main thoroughfare of Fiddletown, and pass- 
ing through a belt of woodland. It was evi- 
dently the exclusive and aristocratic avenue of 
the town. The dwellings were few, ambitious, 
and uninterrupted by shops. And here she was 
joined by Col. Starbottle. 

The gallant colonel, notwithstanding that he 
bore the swelling port which usually distin- 
guished him, that his coat was tightly buttoned, 
and his boots tightly fitting, and that his cane, 
hooked over his arm, swung jauntily, was not 
entirely at his ease. Mrs. Tretherick, however, 
vouchsafed him a gracious smile and a glance 
of her dangerous eyes ; and the colonel, with an 
embarrassed cough and a slight strut, took his 
place at her side. 

“ The coast is clear,” said the colonel, “ and 
Tretherick is over at Dutch Flat on a spree. 
There is no one in the house but a Chinaman : 


206 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 

and yon need fear no trouble from him. I” he 
continued, with a slight inflation of the chest 
that imperilled the security of his button, “ I 
will see that you are protected in the removal 
of your property.” 

“ I’m sure it’s very kind of you, and so dis- 
interested ! ” simpered the lady as they walked 
along. “ It’s so pleasant to meet some one who 
has soul, — some one to sympathize with in a 
community so hardened and heartless as this.” 
And Mrs. Tretherick cast down her eyes, but 
not until they wrought their perfect and ac- 
cepted work upon her companion. 

“ Yes, certainly, of course,” said the colonel, 
glancing nervously up and down the street, — 
“ yes, certainly.” Perceiving, however, that 
there was no one in sight or hearing, he pro- 
ceeded at once to inform Mrs. Tretherick that 
the great trouble of his life, in fact, had been 
the possession of too much soul. That many 
women — as a gentleman she would excuse 
him, of course, from mentioning names — but 
many beautiful women had often sought his 
society, but being deficient, madam, absolutely 
deficient, in this quality, he could not recipro- 
cate. But when two natures thoroughly in 
sympathy, despising alike the sordid trammels 
of a low and vulgar community, and the con 
ventional restraints of a hypocritical society, — 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 207 


when two souls in perfect accord met and 
mingled in poetical union, then — but here the 
colonel’s speech, which had been remarkable for a 
certain whiskey-and-watery fluency, grew husky, 
almost inaudible, and decidedly incoherent. 
Possibly Mrs. Tretherick may have heard some- 
thing like it before, and was enabled to fill the 
hiatus. Nevertheless, the cheek that was on 
the side of the colonel was quite virginal and 
bashfully conscious until they reached their 
destination. 

It was a pretty little cottage, quite fresh and 
warm with paint, very pleasantly relieved 
against a platoon of pines, some of whose fore- 
most files had been displaced to give freedom 
to the fenced enclosure in which it sat. In the 
vivid sunlight and perfect silence, it had a new, 
uninhabited look, as if the carpenters and 
painters had just left it. At the farther end of 
the lot, a Chinaman was stolidly digging ; but 
there was no other sign of occupancy. “ The 
coast,” as the colonel had said, was indeed 
“ clear.” Mrs. Tretherick paused at the gate. 
The colonel would have entered with her, but 
was stopped by a gesture. “ Come for me in a 
couple of hours, and I shall have every thing 
packed,” she said, as she smiled, and extended 
her hand. The colonel seized and pressed it 
with great fervor. Perhaps the pressure was 


208 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


slightly returned ; for the gallant colonel was 
impelled to inflate his chest, and trip away as 
smartly as his stubby-toed, high-heeled boots 
would permit. When he had gone, Mrs. Treth- 
erick opened the door, listened a moment in 
the deserted hall, and then ran quickly up stairs 
to what had been her bedroom. 

Every thing there was unchanged as on the 
night she left it. On the dressing-table stood 
her bandbox, as she remembered to have left it 
when she took out her bonnet. On the mantle 
lay the other glove she had forgotten in her 
flight. The two lower drawers of the bureau 
were half open (she had forgotten to shut them) ; 
and on its marble top lay her shawl-pin and a 
soiled cuff. What other recollections came upon 
her I know not ; but she suddenly grew quite 
white, shivered, and listened with a beating 
heart, and her hand upon the door. Then she 
stepped to the mirror, and half fearfully, half 
curiously, parted with her fingers the braids of 
her blonde hair above her little pink ear, until 
she came upon an ugly, half-healed scar. She 
gazed at this, moving her pretty head up and 
down to get a better light upon it, until the 
sligr + cast in her velvety eyes became very 
strongly marked indeed. Then she turned 
away with a light, reckless, foolish laugh, and 
ran to the closet where hung her precious 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 209 

dresses. These she inspected nervously, and 
missing suddenly a favorite black silk from its 
accustomed peg, for a moment, thought she 
shou]d have fainted. But discovering it the 
next instant lying upon a trunk where she had 
thrown it, a feeling of thankfulness to a supe- 
rior Being who protects the friendless, for the 
first time sincerely Willed her. Then, albeit 
she was hurried for time, she could not resist 
trying the effect of a certain lavender neck- 
ribbon upon the dress she was then wearing, 
before the mirror. And then suddenly she 
became aware of a child’s voice close beside her, 
and she stopped. And then the child’s voice 
repeated, “ Is it mamma ? ” 

Mrs. Tretherick faced quickly about. Stand- 
ing in the doorway was a little girl of six or 
seven. Her dress had been originally fine, but 
was torn and dirty ; and her hair, which was a 
very violent red, was tumbled serio-comically 
about her forehead. Fo ait dns, she was a 
picturesque little thing, even through whose 
childish timidity there was a certain self-sus- 
tained air which is apt to come upon children 
who are left much to themselves. She was 
bolding under her arm a rag doll, apparently of 
her own workmanship, and nearly as large as 
herself, — a doll with a cylindrical head, and 
features roughly indicated with charcoal. A 


210 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

long shawl, evidently belonging to a grown 
person, dropped from her shoulders, and swept 
the floor. 

The spectacle did not excite Mrs. Trether 
ick’s delight. Perhaps she had but a small 
sense of humor. Certainly, when the child, 
still standing in the doorway, again asked, “ Is 
it mamma?” she answered sharply, “No, it 
isn’t,” and turned a severe look upon the in- 
truder. 

The child retreated a step, and then, gaining 
courage with the distance, said in deliciously 
imperfect speech, — 

“ Dow ’way then ! why don’t you dow away ? ” 

But Mrs. Tretherick was eying the shawl. 
Suddenly she whipped it off the child’s shoul- 
ders, and said angrily, — 

“How dared you take my things, you bad 
child?” 

“Is it yours? Then you are my mamma; 
ain’t you? You are mamma! ’’she continued 
gleefully ; and, before Mrs. Tretherick could 
avoid her, she had dropped her doll, and, catch* 
ing the woman’s skirts with both hands, was 
dancing up and down before her. 

“ What’s your name, child ? ” said Mrs. Treth- 
erick coldly, removing the small and not very 
white hands from her garments. 

“ Tarry.” 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 211 


“ Tarry?” 

“ Yeth. Tarry. Tarowline.” 

“ Caroline ? ” 

“ Yeth. Tarowline Tretherick.” 

“ Whose child are you ? ” demanded Mrs. 
Tretherick still more coldly, to keep down a 
rising fear. 

“ Why, yours,” said the little creature with a 
laugh. “I’m your little durl. You’re my 
mamma, my new mamma. Don’t you know my 
ole mamma’s dorn away, never to turn back 
any more? I don’t live wid my ol’ mamma 
now. I live wid you and papa.” 

“ How long have you been here ? ” asked Mrs. 
Tretherick snappishly. 

“ I fink it’s free days,” said Carry reflectively. 

“You think! Don’t you know?” sneered 
Mrs. Tretherick. “ Then, where did you come 
from ? ” 

Carry’s lip began to work under this sharp 
cross-examination. With a great effort and a 
small gulp, she got the better of it, and an- 
swered, — 

“ Papa, papa fetched me, — from Miss Sim 
mons — from Sacramento, last week.” 

“ Last week ! You said three days just now,” 
ie turned Mrs Tretherick with severe delibera- 
vion. 

“I mean a monf,” said Carry, now utterly 
adrift in sheer helplessness and confusion. 


212 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

“ Do you know what you are talking about ?” 
demanded Mrs. Tretherick shrilly, restraining 
an impulse to shake the little figure before her, 
and precipitate the truth by specific gravity. 

But the flaming red head here suddenly 
disappeared in the folds of Mrs. Tretherick’s 
dress, as if it were trying to extinguish itself 
forever. 

“ There now — stop that sniffling,’ 5 said Mrs. 
Tretherick, extricating her dress from the moist 
embraces of the child, and feeling exceedingly 
uncomfortable. “ Wipe your face now, and run 
away, and don’t bother. Stop,” she continued, 
as Carry moved away. “ Where’s your papa ? ” 

“ He’s dorn away too. He’s sick. He’s been 
dorn ” — she hesitated — “ two, free, days.” 

“ Who takes care of you, child ? ” said Mrs. 
Tretherick, eying her curiously. 

“John, the Chinaman. I tresses myselth. 
John tooks and makes the beds.” 

“Well, now, run away and behave yourself, 
and don’t bother me any more,” said Mrs. 
Tretherick, remembering the object of her visit. 
“Stop — where are you going? ' she added, as 
the child began to ascend the stairs, dragging 
the long doll after her by one helpless leg. 

“ Doin up stairs to play and be dood, and no 
bother mamma.” 

“ I ain’t your mamma,” shouted Mrs. Trether 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


213 


ick, and then she swiftly re-entered her bed- 
room, and slammed the door. 

Once inside, she drew forth a large trunk 
from the closet, and set to work with querulous 
and fretful haste to pack her wardrobe. She 
tore her best dress in taking it from the hook 
on which it hung : she scratched her soft hands 
twice with an ambushed pin. All the while, 
she kept up an indignant commentary on the 
events of the past few moments. She said to 
herself she saw it all. Tretherick had sent for 
this child of his first wife — this child of whose 
existence he had never seemed to care — just to 
insult her, to fill her place. Doubtless the first 
wife herself would follow soon, or perhaps 
there would be a third. Red hair, not auburn, 
but red , — of course the child, this Caroline, 
looked like its mother, and, if so, she was any 
thing but pretty. Or the whole thing had 
been prepared : this red-haired child, the image 
of its mother, had been kept at a convenient 
distance at Sacramento, ready to be sent for 
when needed. She remembered his occasional 
visits there on — business, as he said. Perhaps 
the mother already was there ; but no, she had 
gone East. Nevertheless, Mrs. Tretherick, in 
her then state of mind, preferred to dwell upon 
the fact that she might be there. She was 
dimly conscious, also, of a certain satisfaction 


214 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

in exaggerating her feelings. Surely no woman 
had ever been so shamefully abused. In fancy, 
she sketched a picture of herself sitting alone 
and deserted, at sunset, among the fallen 
columns of a ruined temple, in a melancholy 
yet graceful attitude, while her husband drove 
rapidly away in a luxurious coach-and-four, 
with a red-haired woman at his side. Sitting 
upon the trunk she had just packed, she partly 
composed a lugubrious poem, describing her 
sufferings, as, wandering alone, and poorly clad, 
she came upon her husband and “ another ” 
flaunting in silks and diamonds. She pictured 
herself dying of consumption, brought on by 
sorrow, — a beautiful wreck, yet still fascinating, 
gazed upon adoringly by the editor of “ The 
Avalanche,” and Col. Starbottle. And where 
was Col. Starbottle all this while ? Why didn’t 
he come? He, at least, understood her. He 
— she laughed the reckless, light laugh of a few 
moments before; and then her face suddenly 
grew grave, as it had not a few moments before . 

What was that little red-haired imp doing all 
this time? Why was she so quiet? She 
opened the door noiselessly, and listened. She 
fancied that she heard, above the multitudinous 
small noises and creakings and warpings of 
tne vacant house, a smaller voice singing on the 
floor above This, as she remembered, was 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 215 


only an open attic that had been used as a store- 
room. With a half-guilty consciousness, she 
crept softly up stairs, and, pushing the door 
partly open, looked within. 

Athwart the long, low-studded attic, a slant 
sunbeam from a single small window lay, filled 
with dancing motes, and only half illuminating 
the barren, dreary apartment. In the ray of 
this sunbeam she saw the child’s glowing hair, 
as if crowned by a red aureola, as she sat upon 
the floor with her exaggerated doll between her 
knees. She appeared to be talking to it ; and it 
was not long before Mrs. Tretherick observed 
that she was rehearsing the interview of a half- 
hour before. She catechised the doll severely, 
cross-examining it in regard to the duration of 
its stay there, and generally on the measure 
of time. The imitation of Mrs. Tretherick’s 
manner was exceedingly successful, and the 
conversation almost a literal reproduction, 
with a single exception. After she had in- 
formed the doll that she was not her mother, 
at the close of the interview she added patheti- 
cally, “that if she was dood, very dood, she 
might be her mamma, and love her very much.” 

I have already hinted that Mrs. Tretherick 
was deficient in a sense of humor. Perhaps 
t was for this reason that this whole scene 
\ifected her most unpleasantly; and the con- 


216 


AN EPISODE OF FEDDLETOWN. 


elusion sent the blood tingling to her cheek. 
There was something, too, inconceivably lonely 
in the situation. The unfurnished vacant 
room, the half-lights, the monstrous doll, whose 
very size seemed to give a pathetic significance 
to its speechlessness, the smallness of the one 
animate, self-centred figure, — all these touched 
more or less deeply the half-poetic sensibilities 
of the woman. She could not help utilizing 
the impression as she stood there, and thought 
what a fine poem might be constructed from 
this material, if the room were a little darker, 
the child lonelier, — say, sitting beside a dead 
mother’s bier, and the wind wailing in the 
turrets. And then she suddenly heard foot- 
steps at the door below, and recognized the 
tread of the colonel’s cane. 

She flew swiftly down the stairs, and encoun- 
tered the colonel in the hall. Here she poured 
into his astonished ear a voluble and exag- 
gerated statement of her discovery, and indig- 
nant recital of her wrongs. “ Don’t tell me the 
whole thing wasn’t arranged beforehand ; for I 
know it was!” she almost screamed. 44 And 
think,” she added, 44 of the heartlessness of the 
wretch, leaving his own child alone here in that 
way.” 

44 It’s a blank shame ! ” stammered the colonel 
without the least idea of what he was talking 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 217 

about. In fact, utterly unable as be wa§ to 
comprehend a reason for the woman’s excite- 
ment with his estimate of her character* I fear 
lie showed it more plainly than he intended. 
He stammered, expanded his chest, looked 
stern, gallant, tender, but all unintelligently. 
Mi v __ Tretherick, for an instant, experienced a 
sickening doubt of the existence of natures in 
perfect affinity. 

“ It’s of no use,” said Mrs. Tretherick with 
sudden vehemence, in answer to some inaudible 
remark of the colonel’s, and withdrawing her 
hand from the fervent grasp of that ardent and 
sympathetic man. “ It’s of no use : my mind 
is made up. You can send for my trunk as soon 
as you like ; but I shall stay here, and confront 
that man with the proof of his vileness. I will 
put him face to face with his infamy.” 

I do not know whether Col. Starbottle 
thoroughly appreciated the convincing proof 
of Tretherick’s unfaithfulness and malignity 
afforded by the damning evidence of the exist 
ence of Tretherick’s own child in his own 
house. He was dimly aware, however, of some 
unforeseen obstacle to the perfect expression 
of the infinite longing of his own sentimental 
nature. But, before he could say any thing. 
Carry appeared on the landing above them, 
looking timidly, and yet half-critically at the 
pair. 


218 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

“ That’s her,” said Mrs. Tretherick excitedly ^ 
In her deepest emotions, either in verse or prose, 
she rose above a consideration of grammatical 
construction. 

“Ah!” said the colonel, with a sudden 
assumption of parental affection and jocularity 
that was glaringly unreal and affected. “ Ah ! 
pretty little girl, pretty little girl ! How do you 
do ? How are you ? You find yourself pretty 
well, do you, pretty little girl ? ” The colonel’s 
impulse also was to expand his chest, and swing 
his cane, until it occurred to him that this action 
might be ineffective with a child of six or seven. 
Carry, however, took no immediate notice of this 
advance, but further discomposed the chivalrous 
colonel by running quickly to Mrs. Tretherick, 
and hiding herself, as if for protection, in the 
folds of her gown. Nevertheless, the colonel 
was not vanquished. Falling back into an atti- 
tude of respectful admiration, he pointed out a 
marvellous resemblance to the “ Madonna and 
Child.” Mrs. Tretherick simpered, but did not 
dislodge Carry as before. There was an awk- 
ward pause for a moment ; and then Mrs. Treth- 
erick, motioning significantly to the child, said 
in a whisper, “ Go now. Don’t come here 
again, but meet me to-night at the hotel.” She 
extended her hand: the colonel bent over it 
gallantly, and, raising his hat, the next moment 
was gone. 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


219 


“ Do you think,” said Mrs. Tretherick with 
an embarrassed voice and a prodigious blush, 
looking down, and addressing the fiery curls just 
visible in the folds of her dress, — “do you 
think you will be ‘dood,’ if I let you stay in 
here and sit with me?” 

“ And let me tall you mamma ? ” queried 
Carry, looking up. 

“ And let you call me mamma ! ” assented 
Mrs. Tretherick with an embarrassed laugh. 

“ Yeth,” said Carry promptly. 

They entered the bedroom together. Carry’s 
eye instantly caught sight of the trunk. 

“Are you do win away adain, mamma?” she 
said with a quick nervous look, and a clutch at 
the woman’s dress. 

“bTo-o,” said Mrs. Tretherick, looking out 
of the window. 

“ Only playing your dowin away,” suggested 
Carry with a laugh. “ Let me play too.” 

Mrs. Tretherick assented. Carry flew into 
the next room, and presently re-appeared, drag- 
ging a small trunk, into which she gravely pro- 
ceeded to pack her clothes. Mrs. Tretherick 
noticed that they were not many. A question 
cr two regarding them brought out some further 
replies from the child ; and, before many minutes 
had elapsed, Mrs. Tretherick was in possession 
of all her earlier history. But, to do this, Mrs 


220 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

Tretherick had been obliged to take Carry 
upon her lap, pending the most confidential 
disclosures. They sat thus a long time after 
Mrs. Tretherick had apparently ceased to be 
interested in Carry’s disclosures; and, when lost, 
in thought, she allowed the child to rattle on 
unheeded, and ran her fingers through the 
scarlet curls. 

“ You don’t hold me right, mamma,” said 
Carry at last, after one or two uneasy shiftings 
of position. 

“ How should I hold you ? ” asked Mrs. Treth- 
erick with a half-amijsed, half-embarrassed 
laugh. 

“ Dis way,” said Carry, curling up into posi- 
tion, with one arm around Mrs. Tretherick’s 
neck, and her cheek resting on her bosom, — 
“ dis way, — dere.” After a little preparatory 
nestling, not unlike some small animal, she 
closed her eyes, and went to sleep. 

For a few moments the woman sat silent, 
scarcely daring to breathe in that artificial atti- 
tude. And then, whether from some occult 
sympathy in the touch, or God best knows 
what, a sudden fancy began to thrill her. She 
began by remembering an old pain that she 
had forgotten, an old horror that she had reso- 
lutely put away all these years. She recalled 
days of sickness and distrust, — days of ar 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 221 


overshadowing fear, — days of preparation for 
something that was to he prevented, that was 
prevented, with mortal agony and fear. She 
thought of a life that might have been, — she 
dared not say had been, — and wondered. It 
was six years ago : if it had lived, it would have 
been as old as Carry. The arms which were 
folded loosely around the sleeping child began 
to tremble, and tighten their clasp. And then 
the deep potential impulse came, and with a 
half-sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out, and 
drew the body of the sleeping child down, 
down, into her breast, down again and again as 
if she would hide it in the grave dug there 
years before. And the gust that shook her 
passed, and then, ah me ! the rain. 

A drop or two fell upon the curls of Carry, 
and she moved uneasily in her sleep. But the 
woman soothed her again, — it was so easy to do 
it now, — and they sat there quiet and undis- 
turbed, so quiet that they might have seemed 
incorporate of the lonely silent house, the 
slowly-declining sunbeams, and the general air 
of desertion and abandonment, yet a desertion 
that had in it nothing of age, decay, or despair. 

Col. Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown 
Hotel all that night in vain. And the next morn- 
ing, when Mr. Tretherick returned to his husks. 


222 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

he found the house vacant and untenanted, 
except by motes and sunbeams. 

When it was fairly known that Mrs. Trether- 
ick had run away, taking Mr. Tretherick’s own 
child with her, there was some excitement, and 
much diversity of opinion, in Fiddletown. “ The 
Dutch Flat Intelligencer” openly alluded to 
the “ forcible abduction ” of the child with the 
same freedom, and it is to be feared the same 
prejudice, with which it had criticised the 
abductor’s poetry. All of Mrs. Tretherick’s 
own sex, and perhaps a few of the opposite sex, 
whose distinctive quality was not, however, 
very strongly indicated, fully coincided in the 
views of “ The Intelligencer.” The majority, 
however, evaded the moral issue: that Mrs. 
Tretherick had shaken the red dust of Fiddle- 
town from her dainty slippers was enough for 
them to know. They mourned the loss of the 
fair abductor more than her offence. They 
promptly rejected Tretherick as an injured hus- 
band and disconsolate father, and even went 
so far as to openly cast discredit on the sincerity 
of his grief. They reserved an ironical con- 
dolence for Col. Starbottle, overbearing that 
excellent man with untimely and demonstra- 
tive sympathy in bar-rooms, saloons, and other 
localities not generally deemed favorable to 
the display of sentiment. “She was alliz a 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


223 


skittish thing, kernel,” said one s}Tnpathizer, 
with a fine affectation of gloomy concern, and 
great readiness of illustration ; “ and it’s kinder 
nat’ril thet she’d get away some day, and stam- 
pede that theer colt : but thet she should shake 
you , kernel, thet she should just shake you — is 
what gits me. And they do say thet you jis^ 
hung around thet hotel all night, and payrolled 
them corriders, and histed yourself up and down 
them stairs, and meandered in and out o’ thet 
piazzy, and all for nothing ? ” It was another 
generous and tenderly commiserating spirit that 
poured additional oil and wine on the colonel’s 
wounds. “ The boys yer let on thet Mrs. Treth- 
erick prevailed on ye to pack her trunk and a 
baby over from the house to the stage-offis, and 
that the chap ez did go off with her thanked 
you, and offered you two short bits, and sed ez 
how he liked your looks, and ud employ you 
agin — and now you say it ain’t so? Well, I’ll 
tell the boys it aint so, and I’m glad I met you, 
for stories do get round.” 

Happily for Mrs. Tretherick’s reputation, 
however, the Chinaman in Tretherick’s employ- 
ment, who was the only eye-witness of her 
flight, stated that she was unaccompanied, ex- 
cept by the child. He further deposed, that, 
obeying her orders, he had stopped the Sacra- 
mento coach, and secured a passage for herself 


224 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

and child to San Francisco. It was true that 
Ah Fe’s testimony was of no legal value. But 
nobody doubted it. Even those who were scep- 
tical of the Pagan’s ability to recognize the 
sacredness of the truth admitted his passion- 
less, unprejudiced unconcern. But it would 
appear, from a hitherto unrecorded passage of 
this veracious chronicle, that herein they were 
mistaken. 

It was about six months after the disappear- 
ance of Mrs. Tretherick, that Ah Fe, while 
working in Tretherick’s lot, was hailed by two 
passing Chinamen. They were the ordinary 
mining coolies, equipped with long poles and 
baskets for their usual pilgrimages. An ani- 
mated conversation at once ensued between Ah 
Fe and his brother Mongolians, — a conversa- 
tion characterized by that usual shrill volubility 
and apparent animosity which was at once the 
delight and scorn of the intelligent Caucasian 
who did not understand a word of it. Such, 
at least, was the feeling with which Mr. Treth- 
erick on his veranda, and Col. Starbottle who 
was passing, regarded their heathenish jargon. 
The gallant colonel simply kicked them out 
of his way : the irate Tretherick, with an oath, 
th:ew a stone at the group, and dispersed them, 
but not before one or two slips of yellow rice* 
paper, marked with hieroglyphics, were ex 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


225 


changed, and a small parcel put into Ah Fe’s 
hands. When Ah Fe opened this in the dim 
solitude of his kitchen, he found a little girl’s 
apron, freshly washed, ironed, and folded. On 
the corner of the hem were the initials “ C. T.” 
Ah Fe tucked it away in a corner of his blouse, 
and proceeded to wash his dishes in the sink 
with a smile of guileless satisfaction. 

Two days after this, Ah Fe confronted his mas- 
ter. “ Me no likee Fiddletown. Me belly sick. 
Me go now.” Mr. Tretherick violently sug- 
gested a profane locality. Ah Fe gazed at him 
placidly, and withdrew. 

Before leaving Fiddletown, however, he acci- 
dentally met Col. Starbottle, and dropped a few 
incoherent phrases which apparently interested 
that gentleman. When he concluded, the colo- 
nel handed him a letter and a twenty-dollar 
gold-piece. “If you bring me an answer, I’ll 
double that — Sabe, John?” Ah Fe nodded. 
An interview equally accidental, with precisely 
the same result, took place between Ah Fe and 
another gentleman, whom I suspect to have 
been the youthful editor of “ The Avalanche.” 
Yet I regret to state, that, after proceeding some 
distance on his journey, Ah Fe calmly broke 
the seals of both letters, and, after trying to 
read them upside down and sideways, finally 
divided them into accurate squares, and in this 


22(5 AN EPISODE OF FJDDLETOWN. 

condition disposed of them to a brother Celes- 
tial whom he met on the road, for a trifling 
gratuity. The agony of Col. Starbottle on 
finding his wash-bill made out on the unwritten 
side of one of these squares, and delivered to 
him with his weekly clean clothes, and the sub- 
sequent discovery that the remaining portions 
of his letter were circulated by the same method 
from the Chinese laundry of one Fung Ti of 
Fiddletown, has been described to me as pecu- 
liarly affecting. Yet I am satisfied that a higher 
nature, rising above the levity induced by the 
mere contemplation of the insignificant details 
of this breach of trust, would find ample retrib- 
utive justice in the difficulties that subsequently 
attended Ah Fe’s pilgrimage. 

On the road to Sacramento he was twice play- 
fully thrown from the top of the stage-coach by 
an intelligent but deeply-intoxicated Caucasian, 
whose moral nature was shocked at riding with 
one addicted to opium-smoking. At Hangtown 
he was beaten by a passing stranger, — purely 
an act of Christian supererogation. At Dutch 
Flat he was robbed by well-known hands from 
unknown motives. At Sacramento he was ar- 
rested on suspicion of being something or other, 
and discharged with a severe reprimand — pos- 
sibly for not being it, and so delaying the course 
of justice > At San Francisco he was freely 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 227 


stoned by children of the public schools ; but, by 
carefully avoiding these monuments of enlight- 
ened progress, he at last reached, in comparative 
6afety, the Chinese quarters, where his abuse was 
confined to the police, and limited by the strong 
arm of the law. 

The next day he entered the wash-house of 
Chy Fook as an assistant, and on the following 
Friday was sent with a basket of clean clothes 
to Chy Fook’s several clients. 

It was the usual foggy afternoon as he 
climbed the long wind-swept hill of California 
Street, — one of those bleak, gray intervals that 
made the summer a misnomer to any but the 
liveliest San-Franciscan fancy. There was no 
warmth or color in earth or sky, no light nor 
shade within or without, only one monotonous, 
universal neutral tint over every thing. There 
was a fierce unrest in the wind-whipped streets : 
there was a dreary vacant quiet in the gray 
houses. When Ah Fe reached the top of the 
hill, the Mission Ridge was already hidden; 
and the chill sea-breeze made him shiver. As he 
put down his basket to rest himself, it is possible, 
that, to his defective intelligence and heathen 
experience, this “ God’s own climate,” as it was 
called, seemed to possess but scant tenderness, 
softness, or mercy. But it is possible that Ah 
Fe illogically confounded this season with his 


228 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


old persecutors, the school-children, who, being 
released from studious confinement, at this hour 
were generally most aggressive. So he hastened 
on, and, turning a corner, at last stopped before 
a small house. 

It was the usual San-Franciscan urban cob 
tage. There was the little strip of cold green 
shrubbery before it; the chilly, bare veranda, 
and above this, again, the grim balcony, on which 
no one sat. Ah Fe rang the bell. A servant 
* appeared, glanced at his basket, and reluctantly 
admitted him, as if he were some necessary 
domestic animal. Ah Fe silently mounted the 
stairs, and, entering the open door of the front- 
chamber, put down the basket, and stood pas- 
sively on the threshold. 

A woman, who was sitting in the cold gray 
light of the window, with a child in her lap, 
rose listlessly, and came toward him. Ah Fe 
instantly recognized Mrs. Tretherick ; but not a 
muscle of his immobile face changed, nor did 
his slant eyes lighten as he met her own pla- 
cidly. She evidently did not recognize him as 
she began to count the clothes. But the child, 
curiously examining him, suddenly uttered a 
short, glad ory. 

“Why, it’s John, mamma! It’s our old 
John what we had in Fiddletown.” 

For an instant Ah Fe’s eyes and teeth eleetri 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 229 

cally lightened. The child clapped her hands, 
and caught at his blouse. Then he said shortly, 
“Me John — Ah Fe — allee same. Me know 
you. How do ? ” 

Mrs. Tretherick dropped the clothes ner- 
vously, and looked hard at Ah Fe. Wanting 
the quick-witted instinct of affection that sharp- 
ened Carry’s perception, she even then could 
not distinguish him above his fellows. With a 
recollection of past pain, and an obscure suspi- 
cion of impending danger, she asked him when 
he had left Fiddletown. 

“ Longee time. No likee Fiddletown, no likee 
Tleveliek. Likee San Flisco. Likee washee. 
Likee Tally.” 

Ah Fe’s laconics pleased Mrs. Tretherick. 
She did not stop to consider how much an 
imperfect knowledge of English added to his 
curt directness and sincerity. But she said, 
“Don’t tell anybody you have seen me,” and 
took out her pocket-book. 

Ah Fe, without looking at it, saw that it was 
nearly empty. Ah Fe, without examining the 
apartment, saw that it was scantily furnished. 
Ah Fe, without removing his eyes from blank 
vacancy, saw that both Mrs. Tretherick and 
Carry were poorly dressed. Yet it is my duty 
to state that Ah Fe’s long fingers closed 
promptly and firmly over the half-dollar which 
Mrs. Tretherick extended to him. 


230 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a 
series of extraordinary contortions. After a few 
moments, he extracted from apparently no par 
ticular place a child’s apron, which he laid upon 
the basket with the remark, — 

“ One piecee washman flagittee.” 

Then he began anew his fumblings and con- 
tortions. At last his efforts were rewarded by 
his producing, apparently from his right ear, a 
many-folded piece of tissue-paper. Unwrapping 
this carefully, he at last disclosed two twenty- 
dollar gold-pieces, which he handed to Mrs. 
Tretherick. 

“ You leavee money top-side of blulow, Fid- 
dletown. Me findee money. Me fetchee money 
to you. All lightee.” 

“But I left no money on the top of the 
bureau, John,” said Mrs. Tretherick earnestly. 
“ There must be some mistake. It belongs to 
some other person. Take it back, John.” 

Ah Fe’s brow darkened. He drew away 
from Mrs. Tretherick’s extended hand, and be- 
gan hastily to gather up his basket. 

“ Me no takee it back. No, no ! Bimeby 
pleesman he catchee me. He say, 4 God damn 
thief ! — catchee flowty dollar : come to jailee.’ 
Me no takee back. You leayee money top-side 
blulow, Fiddletown. Me fetchee money you 
Me no takee back.” 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 231 


Mrs. Trertherick hesitated. In the confusion 
of her flight, she might have left the money in 
the manner he had said. In any event, she had 
no right to jeopardize this honest Chinaman’s 
safety by refusing it. So she said, “ Very well 
John, I will keep it. But you must come again 
and see me” — here Mrs. Tretherick hesitated 
with a new and sudden revelation of the fact 
that any man could wish to see any other than 
herself — “ and, and — Carry.” 

Ah Fe’s face lightened. He even uttered a 
short ventriloquistic laugh without moving his 
mouth. Then shouldering his basket, he shut 
the door carefully, and slid quietly down stairs. 
In the lower hall he, however, found an unex- 
pected difficulty in opening the front-door, and, 
after fumbling vainly at the lock for a moment, 
looked around for some help or instruction. 
But the Irish handmaid who had let him in was 
contemptuously oblivious of his needs, and did 
not appear. 

There occurred a mysterious and painful in- 
cident, which I shall simply record without 
attempting to explain. On the hall-table a 
scarf, evidently the property of the servant 
before alluded to, was lying. As Ah Fe tried 
the lock with one hand, the other rested lightly 
on the table. Suddenly, and apparently of its 
own volition, the scarf began to creep slowly 


232 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


towards Ah Fe’s hand ; from Ah Fe’s hand it 
began to creep up his sleeve slowly, and with 
an insinuating, snake-like motion; and then 
disappeared somewhere in the recesses of his 
blouse. Without betraying the least interest 
or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still 
repeated his experiments upon the lock. A 
moment later the tablecloth of red damask, 
moved by apparently the same mysterious im- 
pulse, slowly gathered itself under Ah Fe’s 
fingers, and sinuously disappeared by the same 
hidden channel. What further mystery might 
have followed, I cannot say ; for at this moment 
Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and 
was enabled to open the door coincident with the 
sound of footsteps upon the kitchen-stairs. Ah 
Fe did not hasten his movements, but, patiently 
shouldering his basket, closed the door careful- 
ly behind him again, and stepped forth into the 
thick encompassing fog that now shrouded 
earth and sky. 

From her high casement-window, Mrs. 
Tretherick watched Ah Fe’s figure until it dis- 
ippeared in the gray cloud. In her present 
loneliness, she felt a keen sense of gratitude 
toward him, and may have asciibed to the 
higher emotions and the consciousness of a 
good deed, that certain expansiveness of the 
chest, and swelling of the bosom, that was really 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 233 

due to the hidden presence of the scarf and 
tablecloth under his blouse. For Mrs. Trether- 
ick was still poetically sensitive. As the gray 
fog deepened into night, she drew Carry closer 
towards her, and, above the prattle of the child, 
pursued a vein of sentimental and egotistic 
recollection at once bitter and dangerous. The 
sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked her again 
with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the 
dreary interval between, she was now wander- 
ing, — a journey so piteous, wilful, thorny, and 
useless, that it was no wonder that at last 
Carry stopped suddenly in the midst of her 
voluble confidences to throw her small arms 
around the woman’s neck, and bid her not to 
cry. 

Heaven forefend that I should use a pen that 
should be ever dedicated to an exposition of 
unalterable moral principle to transcribe Mrs. 
Tretherick’s own theory of this interval and 
episode, with its feeble palliations, its illogical 
deductions, its fond excuses, and weak apologies. 
It would seem, however, that her experience 
had been hard. Her slender stock of money 
tras soon exhausted. At Sacramento she found 
that the composition of verse, although appeal- 
ing to the highest emotions of the human heart, 
and compelling the editorial breast to the noblest 
commendation in the editorial pages, was singu- 


284 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

iarly inadequate to defray the expenses of her- 
self and Carry. Then she tried the stage, hut 
failed signally. Possibly her conception of the 
passions was different from that which obtained 
with a Sacramento audience ; but it was certain 
that her charming presence, so effective at short 
range, was not sufficiently pronounced for the 
footlights. She had admirers enough in the 
green-room, but awakened no abiding affection 
among the audience. In this strait, it occurred 
to her that she had a voice, — a contralto of no 
very great compass or cultivation, but singular- 
ly sweet and touching ; and she finally obtained 
position in a church-choir. She held it for 
three months, greatly to her pecuniary advan- 
tage, and, it is said, much to the satisfaction of 
the gentlemen in the back-pews, who faced 
toward her during the singing of the last 
hymn. 

I remember her quite distinctly at this time. 
The light that slanted through the oriel of St. 
Dives choir was wont to fall very tenderly on 
her beautiful head with its stacked masses of 
deerskin-colored hair, on the low black arches 
of her brows, and to deepen the pretty fringes 
that shaded her eyes of Genoa velvet. Very 
pleasant it was to watch the opening and shut- 
ting of that small straight mouth, with its quick 
revelation of little white teeth, and to see the 


AN EPISODE OF FEDDLETO WN. 235 

foolish blood faintly deepen her satin cheek as 
yon watched. For Mrs. Tretherick was very 
sweetly conscious of admiration, and, like most 
pretty women, gathered herself under your eye 
like a racer under the spur. 

And then, of course, there came trouble. I 
have it from the soprano, — a little lady who 
possessed even more than the usual unprejudiced 
judgment of her sex, — that Mrs. Tretherick’s 
conduct was simply shameful ; that her conceit 
was unbearable ; that, if she considered the rest 
of the choir as slaves, she (the soprano) would 
like to know it; that her conduct on Easter 
Sunday with the basso had attracted the atten- 
tion of the whole congregation ; and that she 
herself had noticed Dr. Cope twice look up 
during the service; that her (the soprano’s) 
friends had objected to her singing in the choir 
with a person who had been on the stage, but 
she had waived this. Yet she had it from the 
best authority that Mrs. Tretherick had run 
away from her husband, and that this red-haired 
child who sometimes came in the choir was 
not her own. The tenor confided to me behind 
the organ, that Mrs. Tretherick had a way of 
sustaining a note at the end of a line in order 
that her voice might linger longer with the con- 
gregation, — an act that could be attributed 
?>nly to a defective moral nature ; that as a man 


236 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


(he was a very popular dry-goods clerk on 
week-days, and sang a good deal from apparent- 
ly behind his eyebrows on the sabbath) — that 
as a man, sir, he would put up with it no longer. 
The basso alone — a short German with a heavy 
voice, for which he seemed reluctantly responsi- 
ble, and rather grieved at its possession — stood 
up for Mrs. Tretherick, and averred that they 
were jealous of her because she was “bretty.” 
The climax was at last reached in an open quar- 
rel, wherein Mrs. Tretherick used her tongue 
with such precision of statement and epithet, 
that the soprano burst into hysterical tears, and 
had to be supported from the choir by her hus- 
band and the tenor. This act was marked 
intentionally to the congregation by the omis- 
sion of the usual soprano solo. Mrs. Trether- 
ick went home flushed with triumph, but on 
reaching her room frantically told Carry that 
they were beggars henceforward ; that she — her 
mother — had just taken the very bread out of 
her darling’s mouth, and ended by bursting into 
a flood of penitent tears. They did not come 
so quickly as in her old poetical days ; but when 
they came they stung deeply. She was roused 
by a formal visit from a vestryman, — one of the 
music committee. Mrs. Tretherick dried her 
*ong lashes, put on a new neck-ribbon, and 
went down to the parlor. She staid there twc 


AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 


231 


hours, — a fact that might have occasioned some 
remark, but that the vestryman was married, and 
had a family of grown-up daughters. When 
Mrs. Tretherick returned to her room, she sang 
to herself in the glass and scolded Carry — but 
she retained her place in the choir. 

It was not long, however. In due course 
of time, her enemies received a powerful addi- 
tion to their forces in the committee-man’s wife. 
That lady called upon several of the church- 
members and on Dr. Cope’s family. The result 
was, that, at a later meeting of the music com- 
mittee, Mrs. Tretherick’s voice was declared in- 
adequate to the size of the building and she was 
invited to resign. She did so. She had been 
out of a situation for two months, and her scant 
means were almost exhausted, when Ah Fe’s 
unexpected treasure was tossed into her lap. 

The gray fog deepened into night, and the 
street-lamps started into shivering life, as, ab- 
sorbed in these unprofitable memories, Mrs. 
Tretherick still sat drearily at her window. 
Even Carry had slipped away unnoticed ; and 
her abrupt entrance with the damp evening 
paper in her hand roused Mrs. Tretherick, and 
brought her back to an active realization of the 
present. For Mrs. tretherick was wont to scan 
the advertisements in the faint hope of finding 
some avenue of employment — she knew not 


238 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

what — open to her needs ; and Carry had noted 
this habit. 

Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shut- 
ters, lit the lights, and opened the paper. Her 
eye fell instinctively on the following paragraph 
in the telegraphic column : — 


“ Fiddletown, 7th. — Mr. James Tretherick, an old resident 
of this place, died last night of delirium tremens. Mr. Treth- 
erick was addicted to intemperate habits, said to have been 
induced by domestic trouble.” 

Mrs. Tretherick did not start. She quietly 
turned over another page of the paper, and 
glanced at Carry. The child was absorbed in a 
book. Mrs. Tretherick uttered no word, but, 
during the remainder of the evening, was un- 
usually silent and cold. When Carry was un- 
dressed and in bed, Mrs. Tretherick suddenly 
dropped on her knees beside the bed, and, tak- 
ing Carry’s flaming head between her hands, 
said, — 

“ Should you like to have another papa, 
Carry darling?” 

“ No,” said Carry, after a moment’s thought. 

“ But a papa to help mamma take care of 
you, to love you, to give you nice clothes, to 
make a lady of you when you grow up ? ” 

Carfy turned her sleepy eyes toward the 
questioner. “ Should ycu, mamma ? ” 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 239 


Mrs. Tretherick suddenly flushed to the roots 
Df her hair. “ Go to sleep,” she said sharply, 
md turned away. 

But at midnight the child felt two white 
arms close tightly around her, and was drawn 
down into a bosom that heaved, fluttered, and 
at last was broken up by sobs. 

“ Don’t ky, mamma,” whispered Carry, with 
a vague retrospect of their recent conversation. 
“ Don’t ky. I fink I should like a new papa, if 
he loved you very much — very, very much ! ” 

A month afterward, to everybody’s astonish- 
ment, Mrs. Tretherick was married. The happy 
bridegroom was one Col. Starbottle, recently 
elected to represent Calaveras County in the 
legislative councils of the State. As I cannot 
record the event in finer language than that 
used by the correspondent of “ The Sacramento 
Globe,” I venture to quote some of his graceful 
periods. “ The relentless shafts of the sly god 
have been lately busy among our gallant Solons. 
We quote ‘one more unfortunate.’ The latest 
victim is the Hon. C. Starbottle of Calaveras. 
The fair enchantress in the case is a beautiful 
widow, a former votary of Thespis, and lately 
a fascinating St. Cecilia of one of the most 
fashionable churches of San Francisco, where 
she commanded a high salary.” 

“The Dutch Flat Intelligencer” saw fit, 


240 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


however, to comment upon the fact with tha*. 
humorous freedom characteristic of an unfet- 
tered press. 44 The new Democratic war-horse 
from Calaveras has lately advented in the legis- 
lature with a little bill to change the name of 
Tretherick to Starbottle. They call it a mar- 
riage-certificate down there. Mr. Tretherick 
has been dead just one month ; but we presume 
the gallant colonel is not afraid of ghosts.” It 
is but just to Mrs. Tretherick to state that the 
colonel’s victory was by no means an easy one. 
To a natural degree of coyness on the part of 
the lady was added the impediment of a rival, — 
a prosperous undertaker from Sacramento, who 
had first seen and loved Mrs. Tretherick at the 
theatre and church; his professional habits 
debarring him from ordinary social intercourse, 
and indeed any other than the most formal 
public contact with the sex. As this gentleman 
had made a snug fortune during the felicitous 
prevalence of a severe epidemic, the colonel 
regarded him as a dangerous rival. Fortu- 
nately, however, the undertaker was called in 
professionally to lay out a brother-senator, who 
had unhappily fallen by the colonel’s pistol in 
an affair of honor ; and either deterred by 
physical consideration from rivalry, or wisely 
concluding that the colonel was professionally 
raluable, he withdrew from the field. 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


241 


The honeymoon was brief, and brought to a 
close by an untoward incident. During their 
bridal-trip, Carry had been placed in the charge 
of Col. Starbottle’s sister. On their return to 
the city, immediately on reaching their lodg- 
ings, Mrs. Starbottle announced her intention 
of at once proceeding to Mrs. Culpepper’s to 
bring the child home. Col. Starbottle, who 
had been exhibiting for some time a certain 
uneasiness which he had endeavored to over- 
come by repeated stimulation, finally buttoned 
his coat tightly across his breast, and, after 
walking unsteadily once or twice up and down 
the room, suddenly faced his wife with his most 
imposing manner. 

“ I have deferred,” said the colonel with an 
exaggeration of port that increased with his 
inward fear, and a growing thickness of speech. 
— u I have deferr — I may say poshponed state- 
ment o’ fack thash my duty ter dishclose ter 
ye. I did no wish to mar sushine mushal 
happ’ness, to bligh bud o’ promise, to darken 
conjuglar sky by unpleasht revelashun. Musht 
be done — by G — d, m’m, musht do it now. 
The chile is gone ! ” 

“ Gone ! ” echoed Mrs. Starbottle. 

There was something in the tone of her voice, 
in the sudden drawing-together of the pupils 
of her eyes, that for a moment nearly sobered 
the colonel, and partly collapsed his chest 


242 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN , 

“I’ll splain all in a minit,” he said with a 
deprecating wave of the hand. “Every thing 
shall be splained. The-the-the-melencholly event 
wish preshipitate our happ’ness — the myster’us 
prov’nice wish releash you — releash chile ! him- 
erstan ? — releash chile. The mom’t Tretherick 
die — all claim you have in chile through him 
— die too. Thash law. Whose chile b’long 
to? Tretherick? Tretherick dead. Chile 
can’t b’long dead man. Damn nonshense b’long 
dead man. I’sh your chile ? no ! who’s chile 
then ? Chile b’long to ’ts mother. Unnerstan ? ” 

“ Where is she ? ” said Mrs. Starbottle with 
a very white face and a very low voice. 

“I’ll splain all. Chile b’long to ’ts mother. 
Thash law. I’m lawyer, leshlator, and Ameri- 
can sis’n. Ish my duty as lawyer, as leshlator, 
and ’merikan sis’n to reshtore chile to suff rin 
mother at any coss — any coss.” 

“Where is she?” repeated Mrs. Starbottle 
with her eyes still fixed on the colonel’s face. 

“ Gone to ’ts m’o’r. Gone East on shteamer, 
yesserday. Waffed by fav’rin gales to suffirin 
p’rent. Thash so ! ” 

Mrs. Stai bottle did not move. The colonel 
felt his chest slowly collapsing, but steadied 
himself against a chair, and endeavored to beam 
with chivalrous gallantry not unmixed with 
magisterial firmness upon her as si e sat. 


AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 243 


“ Your feelin’s, m’m, do honor to yer sex, but 
conshider situashun. Conshider m’or’s feelings 
— conshider my feelin’s.” The colonel paused, 
and, flourishing a white handkerchief, placed it 
negligently in his breast, and then smiled ten- 
derly above it, as over laces and ruffles, on the 
woman before him. * “ Why should dark shed- 
der cass bligh on two sholes with single beat ? 
Chile’s fine chile, good chile, but summonelse 
chile ! Chile’s gone, Clar’ ; but all ish’n’t gone, 
Clar’. Conshider dearesht, you all’s have me!” 

Mrs. Starbottle started to her feet. “ You ! ” 
she cried, bringing out a chest note that made 
the chandeliers ring, — “ YOU that I married to 
give my darling food and clothes, — you! a dog 
that I whistled to my side to keep the men off 
me, — you!” 

She choked up, and then dashed past him 
into the inner room, which had been Carry’s; 
then she swept by him again into her own bed- 
room, and then suddenly re-appeared before him, 
erect, menacing, with a burning fire over her 
cheek-bones, a quick straightening of her 
aiched brows and mouth, a squaring of jaw, and 
ophidian flattening of the head. 

“Listen!” she said in a hoarse, half-grown 
boy’s voice. “Hear me! If you ever expect 
to set eyes on me again, you must find the child. 
\f you ever expect to speak to me again, to 


244 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

toush me, you must bring her back. For 
where she goes, I go : you hear me ! Where 
she has gone, look for me. ” 

She struck out past him again with a quick 
feminine throwing-out of her arms from the 
elbows down, as if freeing herself from some 
imaginary bonds, and, dashing into her chamber, 
slammed and locked the door. Col. Star- 
bottle, although no coward, stood in superstitious 
fear of an angry woman, and, recoiling as she 
swept by, lost his unsteady foothold, and rolled 
helplessly on the sofa. Here, after one or two 
unsuccessful attempts to regain his foothold, he 
remained, uttering from time to time profane 
but not entirely coherent or intelligible protests, 
■until at last he succumbed to the exhausting 
quality of his emotions, and the narcotic quan- 
tity of his potations. 

Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excit- 
edly gathering her valuables, and packing her 
trunk, even as she had done once before in the 
course of this remarkable history. Perhaps 
some recollection of this was in her mind ; for 
she stopped to lean her burning cheeks upon 
her hand, as if she saw again the figure of the 
child standing in the doorway, and heard once 
more a childish voice asking, “ Is it mamma ? v 
But the epithet now stung her to the quick 
and with a quick, passionate gesture she dashed 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


245 


it away with a tear that had gathered in her 
eye. And then it chanced, that, in turning 
oyer some clothes, she came upon the child’s 
slipper with a broken sandal-string. She uttered 
a great cry here, — the first she had uttered, — 
and caught it to her breast, kissing it pas- 
sionately again and again, and rocking from 
side to side with a motion peculiar to her sex. 
And then she took it to the window, the better 
to see it through her now streaming eyes. Here 
she was taken with a sudden fit of coughing 
that she could not stifle with the handkerchief 
she put to her feverish lips. And then she 
suddenly grew very faint. The window seemed 
to recede before her, the floor to sink beneath 
her feet; and, staggering to the bed, she fell 
prone upon it with the sandal and handkerchief 
pressed to her breast. Her face was quite pale, 
the orbit of her eyes dark ; and there was a spot 
upon her lip, another on her handkerchief, 
and still another on the white counterpane of 
the bed. 

The wind had risen, rattling the window- 
sashes, and swaying the white curtains in a 
ghostly way. Later, a gray fog stole softly 
over the roofs, soothing the wind-roughened 
surfaces, and inwrapping all things in an un- 
certain light and a measureless peace. She lay 
there very quiet — for all her troubles, still a 


246 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

very pretty bride. And on the other side of 
the bolted door the gallant bridegroom, from 
his temporary conch, snored peacefully. 

A week before Christmas Day, 1870, the 
little town of Genoa, in the State of New York, 
exhibited, perhaps more strongly than at any 
other time, the bitter irony of its founders and 
sponsors. A driving snow-storm, that had whit- 
ened every windward hedge, bush, wall, and 
telegraph-pole, played around this soft Italian 
Capitol, whirled in and out of the great staring 
wooden Doric columns of its post-office and 
hotel, beat upon the cold green shutters of its 
best houses, and powdered the angular, stiff, 
dark figures in its streets. From the level of 
the street, the four principal churches of the 
town stood out starkly, even while their mis- 
shapen spires were kindly hidden in the low, 
driving storm. Near the railroad-station, the 
new Methodist chapel, whose resemblance to an 
enormous locomotive was further heightened by 
the addition of a pyramidal row of front-steps, 
like a cowcatcher, stood as if waiting for a few 
more houses to be hitched on to proceed to a 
pleasanter location. But the pride of Genoa — 
the great Crammer Institute for Young Ladies 
— stretched its bare brick length, and reared its 
cupola plainly from the bleak Parnassian hill 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 247 


above the principal avenue. There was no eva- 
sion in the Crammer Institute of the fact that 
it was a public institution. A visitor upon its 
doorsteps, a pretty face at its window, were 
clearly visible all over the township. 

The shriek of the engine of the four-o'clock 
Northern express brought but few of the usual 
loungers to the depot. Only a single passenger 
alighted, and was driven away in the solitary 
waiting sleigh toward the Genoa Hotel. And 
then the train sped away again, with that pas- 
sionless indifference to human sympathies or 
curiosity peculiar to express-trains; the one 
baggage-truck was wheeled into the station 
again ; the station-door was locked ; and the sta- 
tion-master went home. 

The locomotive-whistle, however, awakened 
the guilty consciousness of three young ladies 
of the Crammer Institute, who were even 
then surreptitiously regaling themselves in the 
bake-shop and confectionery-saloon of Mistress 
Phillips in a by-lane. For even the admirable 
regulations of the Institute failed to entirely 
develop the physical and moral natures of its 
pupils. They conformed to the excellent dietary 
rules in public, and in private drew upon the 
luxurious rations of their village caterer. They 
attended church with exemplary formality, and 
flirted informally during service with the village 


248 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

beaux. They received the best and most 
judicious instruction during school-hours, and. 
devoured the trashiest novels during recess. 
Th 3 result of which was an aggregation of quite 
healthy, quite human, and very charming young 
creatures, that reflected infinite credit on the 
Institute. Even Mistress Phillips, to whom 
they owed vast sums, exhilarated by the exu- 
berant spirits and youthful freshness of her 
guests, declared that the sight of “ them young 
things ” did her good ; and had even been known 
to shield them by shameless equivocation. 

“ Four o’clock, girls ! and, if we’re not back to 
prayers by five, we’ll be missed,” said the tallest 
of these foolish virgins, with an aquiline nose, 
and certain quiet Sian that bespoke the leader, 
as she rose from her seat. “Have you got 
the books, Addy ? ” Addy displayed three 
dissipated-looking novels under her waterproof. 

4 And the provisions, Carry?” Carry showed 
a suspicious parcel filling the pocket of her 
sack. “ All right, then. Come girls, trudge. — 
Charge it,” she added, nodding to her host as 
they passed toward the door. “I’ll pay you 
when my quarter’s allowance comes.” 

“ No, Kate,” interposed Carry, producing her 
purse, 44 let me pay : it’s my turn.” 

44 Never ! ” said Kate, arching her black brows 
oftily , 44 even if you do have rich relatives, and 


AN EPISODE OF FEDDLETOWN. 


249 


regular remittances from California. Never ! — 
Come, girls, forward, march ! ” 

As they opened the door, a gust of wind 
nearly took them off their feet. Kind-hearted 
Mrs. Phillips was alarmed. “ Sakes alive, galls ! 
ye mussn’t go out in sich weather. Better let 
me send word to the Institoot, and make ye up 
a nice bed to-night in my parlor.’’ But the last 
sentence was lost in a chorus of half-suppressed 
shrieks, as the girls, hand in hand, ran down the 
steps into the storm, and were at once whirled 
away. 

The short December day, unlit by any sunset 
glow, was failing fast. It was quite dark 
already; and the air was thick with driving 
snow. For some distance their high spirits, 
youth, and even inexperience, kept them bravely 
up ; but, in ambitiously attempting a short-cut 
from the high-road across an open field, their 
strength gave out, the laugh grew less frequent, 
and tears began to stand in Carry’s brown eyes. 
When they reached the road again, they were 
utterly exhausted. “Let us go back,” said 
Carry. 

“ We’d never get across that field again,” said 
Addy. 

“Let’s stop at the first house, then,” said 
Carry. 

“ The first house,” said Addy, peering through 


250 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 

the gathering darkness, “ is Squire Robinson’s.’ 
She darted a mischievous glance at Carry, that, 
even in her discomfort and fear, brought the 
quick blood to her cheek. 

“ Oh, yes ! ” said Kate with gloomy irony, “ cer- 
tainly ; stop at the squire’s by all means, and bo 
invited to tea, and be driven home after tea by 
your dear friend Mr. Harry, with a formal apol- 
ogy from Mrs. Robinson, and hopes that the 
young ladies may be excused this time. No ! ” 
continued Kate with sudden energy. “That 
may suit you ; but I’m going back as I came, — 
by the window, or not at all.” Then she 
pounced suddenly, like a hawk, on Carry, who 
was betraying a tendency to sit down on a 
snowbank, and whimper, and shook her briskly. 
“ You’ll be going to sleep next. Stay, hold your 
tongues, all of you, — what’s that ? ” 

It was the sound of sleigh-bells. Coming 
down toward them out of the darkness was a 
sleigh with a single occupant. “ Hold down 
your heads, girls: if it’s anybody that knows 
us, we’re lost.” But it was not; for a voice 
strange to their ears, but withal very kindly 
and pleasant, asked if its owner could be of any 
help to them. As they turned toward him, 
they saw it was a man wrapped in a handsome 
sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap ; his face, 
half concealed by a muffler of the same material, 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 251 

disclosing only a pair of long mustaches, and 
two keen dark eyes. “ It’s a son of old Santa 
Clans ! ” whispered Addy. The girls tittered 
audibly as they tumbled into the sleigh : they 
had regained their former spirits. “Where 
shall I take you?” said the stranger quietly. 
There was a hurried whispering ; and then Kate 
said boldly, “To the Institute.” They drove 
silently up the hill, until the long, ascetic 
building loomed up before them. The stranger 
reined up suddenly. “ You know the way bet- 
ter than I,” he said. “ Where do you go in ? ” 
— “ Through the back-window,” said Kate with 
sudden and appalling frankness. “ I see ! ” 
responded their strange driver quietly, and, 
alighting quickly, removed the bells from the 
horses. “ We can drive as near as you please 
now,” he added by way of explanation. “ He 
certainly is a son of Santa Claus,” whispered 
Addy. “ Hadn’t we better ask after his father ? ” 
“ Hush ! ” said Kate decidedly. “ He is an 
angel, I dare say.” She added with a delicious 
irrelevance, which was, however, perfectly 
understood by her feminine auditors, “We are 
looking like three frights.” 

Cautiously skirting the fences, they at last 
pulled up a few feet from a dark wall. The 
stranger proceeded to assist them to alight. 
There was still some light from the reflected 


252 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


snow ; and, as he handed his fair companions to 
the ground, each was conscious of undergoing 
an intense though respectful scrutiny. He 
assisted them gravely to open the window, and 
then discreetly retired to the sleigh until the 
difficult and somewhat discomposing ingress 
was made. He then walked to the window, 
“ Thank you and good-night ! ” whispered three 
voices. A single figure still lingered. The 
stranger leaned over the window-sill. “Will 
you permit me to light my cigar here ? it might 
attract attention if I struck a match outside.” 
By the upspringing light he saw the figure of 
Kate very charmingly framed in by the window. 
The match burnt slowly out in his fingers. Kate 
smiled mischievously. The astute young wo- 
man had detected the pitiable subterfuge. For 
what else did she stand at the head of her class, 
and had doting parents paid three years’ tuition ? 

The storm had passed, and the sun was shin- 
ing quite cheerily in the eastern recitation-room 
the next morning, when Miss Kate, whose seat 
was nearest the window, placing her hand pa- 
thetically upon her heart, affected to fall in 
bashful and extreme agitation upon the shoulder 
of Carry her neighbor. “ He has come,” she 
gasped in a thrilling whisper. “ Who ? ” asked 
Carry sympathetically, who never clearly under 
stood when Kate was in earnest. “Who? — 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 253 


why, the man who rescued us last night ! I saw 
him drive to the door this moment. Don’t 
speak : I shall be better in a moment — there ! ” 
she said; and the shameless hypocrite passed 
her hand pathetically across her forehead with 
a tragic air. 

“ What can he want ? ” asked Carry, whose 
curiosity was excited. 

“ I don’t know,” said Kate, suddenly relaps- 
ing into gloomy cynicism. “ Possibly to put his 
five daughters to school ; perhaps to finish his 
young wife, and warn her against us.” 

“ He didn’t look old, and he didn’t seem like 
a married man,” rejoined Addy thoughtfully. 

“ That was his art, you poor creature ! ” re- 
turned Kate scornfully. “You can never tell 
any thing of these men, they are so deceitful 
Besides, it’s just my fate ! ” 

“ Why, Kate,” began Carry, in serious con- 
cern. 

“Hush! Miss Walker is saying something,” 
said Kate, laughing. 

“ The young ladies will please give attention,” 
said a slow, perfunctory voice. “ Miss Carry 
Tretherick is wanted in the parlor.” 

Meantime Mr. Jack Prince, the name given 
on the card, and various letters and credentials 
submitted to the Rev. Mr. Crammer, paced the 
somewhat severe apartment known publicly as 


254 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


the “reception parlor,” and privately to the 
pupils as “purgatory.” His keen eyes had 
taken in the various rigid details, from the flat 
steam “radiacor,” like an enormous japanned 
soda-cracker, that heated one end . of the room, 
to the monumental bust of Dr. Crammer, that 
hopelessly chilled the other ; from the Lord’s 
Prayer, executed by a former writing-master in 
such gratuitous variety of elegant calligraphic 
trifling as to considerably abate the serious value 
of the composition, to three views of Genoa 
from the Institute, which nobody ever recognized, 
taken on the spot by the drawing-teacher ; from 
two illuminated texts of Scripture in an English 
letter, so gratuitously and hideously remote as 
to chill all human interest, to a large photo- 
graph of the senior class, in which the prettiest 
girls were Ethiopian in complexion, and sat, 
apparently, on each other’s heads and shoulders. 
His fingers had turned listlessly the leaves of 
school-catalogues, the “ Sermons ” of Dr. Cram- 
mer, the “ Poems ” of Henry Kirke White, the 
“ Lays of the Sanctuary ” and “ Lives of Cele- 
brated Women.” His fancy, and it was a ner- 
vously active one, had gone over the partings and 
greetings that must have taken place here, and 
wondered why the apartment had yet caught so 
little of the flavor of humanity ; indeed, I am 
afraid he had almost forgotten the object of his 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 255 


visit, when the door opened, and Carry Treth- 
erick stood before him. 

It was one of those faces he had seen the night 
before, prettier even than it had seemed then ; 
and yet I think he was conscious of some disap- 
pointment, without knowing exactly why. Her 
abundant waving hair was of a guinea-golden 
tint, her complexion of a peculiar flower-like 
delicacy, her brown eyes of the color of seaweed 
in deep water. It certainly was not her beauty 
that disappointed him. 

Without possessing his sensitiveness to im- 
pression, Carry was, on her part, quite as vaguely 
ill at ease. She saw before her one of those 
men whom the sex would vaguely generalize as 
“ nice,” that is to say, correct in all the super- 
ficial appointments of style, dress, manners and 
feature. Yet there was a decidedly unconven- 
tional quality about him : he was totally unlike 
any thing or anybody that she could remember ; 
and, as the attributes of originality are often as 
apt to alarm as to attract people, she was not 
entirely prepossessed in his favor. 

“I can hardly hope,” he began pleasantly, 
“that you remember me. It is eleven years 
„go, and you were a very little girl. I am 
afraid I cannot even claim to have enjoyed that 
familiarity that might exist beween a child of 
six and a young man of twenty-one. I don’t 


256 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


think I was fond of children. But I knew you! 
mother very well. I was editor of 4 The Ava- 
lanche ’ in Fiddletown, when she took you to 
San Francisco.” 

“ You mean my stepmother : she wasn’t my 
mother, you know,” interposed Carry hastily. 

Mr. Prince looked at her curiously. “ I mean 
your stepmother,” he said gravely. “I never 
had the pleasure of meeting your mother.” 

“ No : mother hasn’t been in California these 
twelve years.” 

There was an intentional emphasizing of the 
title and of its distinction, that began to coldly 
interest Prince after his first astonishment was 
past. 

“ As I come from your stepmother now,” he 
went on with a slight laugh, “ I must ask you 
to go back for a few moments to that point. 
After your father’s death, your mother — I 
mean your stepmother — recognized the fact 
that your mother, the first Mrs. Tretherick, 
was legally and morally your guardian, and, 
although much against her inclination and 
affections, placed you again in her charge.” 

“ My stepmother married again within a month 
after father died, and sent me home,” said Carry 
with great directness, and the faintest toss of 
her head. 

Mr. Prince smiled so sweetly, and apparently 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


257 


so sympathetically, that Carry began to like 
him. With no other notice of the interruption 
he went on, “After your stepmother had per- 
formed this act of simple justice, she entered 
into an agreement with your mother to defray 
the expenses of your education until your 
eighteenth year, when you were to elect and 
choose which of the two should thereafter be 
your guardian, and with whom you would make 
your home. This agreement, I think, you are 
already aware of, and, I believe, knew at the 
time.” 

“ I was a mere child then,” said Carry. 

“ Certainly,” said Mr. Prince, with the same 
smile. “ Still the conditions, I think, have never 
been oppressive to you nor your mother; and 
the only time they are likely to give you the 
least uneasiness will be when you come to 
make up your mind in the choice of your 
guardian. That will be on your eighteenth 
birthday, — the 20th, I think, of the present 
month.” 

Carry was silent. 

“ Pray do not think that I am here to receive 
your decision, even if it be already made. I 
only came to inform you that your stepmother, 
Mrs. Starbottle, will be in town to-morrow, and 
will pass a few days at the hotel. If it is your 
wish to see her before you make up your mind, 


258 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

she will be glad to meet you. She does not, 
however, wish to do any thing to influence your 
judgment.” 

“Does mother know she is coming?” said 
Carry hastily. 

“ I do not know,” said Prince gravely. “ I 
only know, that, if you conclude to see Mrs. 
Starbottle, it will be with your mother’s per- 
mission. Mrs. Starbottle will keep sacredly this 
part of the agreement, made ten years ago. 
But her health is very poor; and the change 
and country quiet of a few days may benefit 
her.” Mr. Prince bent his keen, bright eyes 
upon the young girl, and almost held his breath 
until she spoke again. 

“ Mother’s coming up to-day or to-morrow,” 
she said, looking up. 

“ Ah ! ” said Mr. Prince with a sweet and 
languid smile. 

“ Is Col. Starbottle here too ? ” asked Carry, 
after a pause. 

“ Col. Starbottle is dead. Your stepmother 
is again a widow.” 

“ Dead ! ” repeated Carry. 

“Yes,” replied Mr. Prince. “Your step- 
mother has been singularly unfortunate in sur- 
viving her affections.” 

Carry did not know what he meant, and 
iOoked so. Mr. Prince smiled re-assuringly. 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


259 


Presently Carry began to whimper. 

Mr. Prince softly stepped beside her chair. 

“ I am afraid,” he said with a very peculiar 
light in his eye, and a singular dropping of the 
corners of his mustache, — “I am afraid you are 
taking this too deeply. It will be some days 
oefore you are called upon to make a decision. 
Let us talk of something else. I hope you 
caught no cold last evening.” 

Carry’s face shone out again in dimples. 

“You must have thought us so queer! It 
was too bad to give you so much trouble.” 

“ None, whatever, I assure you. My sense of 
propriety,” he added demurely, “ which might 
have been outraged, had I been called upon to 
help three young ladies out of a schoolroom 
window at night, was deeply gratified at being 
able to assist them in again.” The door-bell 
rang loudly, and Mr. Prince rose. “ Take your 
own time, and think well before you make your 
decision.” But Carry’s ear and attention were 
given to the sound of voices in the hall. At 
the same moment, the door was thrown open, 
and a servant announced, “Mrs. Tretherick 
and Mr. Robinson.” 

The afternoon train had just shrieked out its 
usual indignant protest at stopping at Genoa at 
All, as Mr. Jack Prince entered the outskirts of 
the town, and drove towards his hotel. He was 


260 


AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 


wearied and cynical. A drive of a dozen miles 
through unpicturesque outlying villages, past 
small economic farmhouses, and hideous villas 
that violated his fastidious taste, had, I fear, 
left that gentleman in a captious state of mind. 
He would have even avoided his taciturn land- 
lord as he drove up to the door ; but that func- 
tionary waylaid him on the steps. “ There’s a 
lady in the sittin’-room, waitin’ for ye.” Mr. 
Prince hurried up stairs, and entered the room 
as Mrs. Starbottle flew towards him. 

She had changed sadly in the last ten years. 
Her figure was wasted to half its size. The 
beautiful curves of her bust and shoulders were 
broken or inverted. The once full, rounded 
arm was shrunken in its sleeve ; and the golden 
hoops that encircled her wan wrists almost 
slipped from her hands as her long, scant 
fingers closed convulsively around Jack’s. Her 
cheek-bones were painted that afternoon with 
the hectic of fever : somewhere in the hollows 
of those cheeks were buried the dimples of long 
ago ; but their graves were forgotten. Her 
lustrous eyes were still beautiful, though the 
orbits were deeper than before. Her mouth was 
still sweet, although the lips parted more easily 
over the little teeth, and even in breathing, 
and showed more of them than she was wont 
to do before. The glory of her blonde hair 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


261 


was still left: it was finer, more silken and 
ethereal, yet it failed even in its plenitude to 
coyer the hollows of the blue-veined temples. 

“ Clara ! ” said Jack reproachfully. 

“ Oh, forgive me, Jack ! ” she said, falling 
into a chair, but still clinging to his hand, — 
“ forgive me, dear ; but I could not wait longer. 
I should have died, Jack, — died before another 
night. Bear with me a little longer (it will 
not be long), but let me stay. I may not see 
her, I know ; I shall not speak to her : but it’s 
so sweet to feel that I am at last near her, that 
I breathe the same air with my darling. I am 
better already, Jack, I am indeed. And you 
have seen her to-day? How did she look? 
What did she say ? Tell me all, every thing, 
Jack. Was she beautiful? They say she is. 
Has she grown? Would you have known her 
again? Will she come, Jack? Perhaps she 
has been here already ; perhaps,” she had risen 
with tremulous excitement, and was glancing at 
the door, — “perhaps she is here now. Why 
don’t you speak, Jack ? Tell me all.” 

The keen eyes that looked down into hers 
were glistening with an infinite tenderness that 
none, perhaps, but she would have deemed 
them capable of. “ Clara,” he said gently and 
cheerily, “ try and compose yourself. You are 
trembling now with the fatigue and excitement 


262 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


of your journey, I have seen Carry: she is 
well and beautiful. Let that suffice you now.” 

His gentle firmness composed and calmed her 
now, as it had often done before. Stroking her 
thin hand, he said, after a pause, “ Did Carry 
ever write to you ? ” 

44 Twice, thanking me for some presents. 
They were only school-girl letters,” she added, 
nervously answering the interrogation of his 
eyes. 

44 Did she ever know of your own troubles ? 
of your poverty, of the sacrifices you made to 
pay her bills, of your pawning your clothes 
and jewels, of your ” — 

44 No, no ! ” interrupted the woman quickly : 
44 no ! How could she ? I have no enemy cruel 
enough to tell her that.” 

“But if she — or if Mrs. Tretherick — had 
heard of it ? If Carry thought you were poor, 
and unable to support her properly, it might 
influence her decision. Young girls are fond of 
the position that wealth can give. She may 
have rich friends, maybe a lover.” 

Mrs. Starbottle winced at the last sentence. 
14 But,” she said eagerly, grasping Jack’s hand, 
44 when you found me sick and helpless at Sacra- 
mento, when you — God bless you for it, Jack ! 
— offered to help me to the East, you said you 
knew of something, you had some plan, that 
would make me and Carry independent.” 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


263 


“Yes,” said Jack hastily; “but I want you 
to get strong and well first. And, now that 
you are calmer, you shall listen to my visit to 
the school.” 

It was then that Mr. Jack Prince proceeded 
to describe the interview already recorded, with 
a singular felicity and discretion that shames 
my own account of that proceeding. Without 
suppressing a single fact, without omitting a 
word or detail, he yet managed to throw a 
poetic veil over that prosaic episode, to invest 
the heroine with a romantic roseate atmosphere, 
which, though not perhaps entirely imaginary, 
still, I fear, exhibited that genius which ten 
years ago had made the columns of “ The 
Fiddletown Avalanche ” at once fascinating 
and instructive. It was not until he saw the 
heightening color, and heard the quick breath- 
ing, of his eager listener, that he felt a pang of 
self-reproach. “ God help her and forgive me!*' 
he muttered between his clinched teeth ; “ but 
how can I tell her all now ! ” 

That night, when Mrs. Starbottle laid her 
weary head upon her pillow, she tried to picture 
to herself Carry at the same moment sleeping 
peacefully in the great schoolhouse on the hill : 
and it was a rare comfort to this yearning, 
foolish woman to know that she was so near. 
But at this moment Carry was sitting on the 


264 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


edge of lier bed, half undressed, pouting her 
pretty lips, and twisting her long, leonine locks 
between her fingers, as Miss Kate Van Corlear 
— dramatically wrapped in a long white coun- 
terpane, her black eyes sparkling, and her thor- 
ough-bred nose thrown high in air, — stood over 
her like a wrathful and indignant ghost; for 
Carry had that evening imparted her woes and 
her history to Miss Kate, and that young lady 
had “ proved herself no friend ” by falling into 
a state of fiery indignation over Carry’s “ ingrati- 
tude,” and openly and shamelessly espousing 
the claims of Mrs. Starbottle. “Why, if the 
half you tell me is true, your mother and those 
Robinsons are making of you not only a little 
coward, but a little snob, miss. Respectability, 
forsooth ! Look you, my family are centuries 
before the Trethericks ; but if my family had 
ever treated me in this way, and then asked me 
to turn my back on my best friend, I’d whistle 
them down the wind ; ” and here Kate snapped 
her fingers, bent her black brows, and glared 
around the room as if in search of a recreant 
Van Corlear. 

u You just talk this way, because you have 
taken a fancy to that Mr. Prince,” said Cany. 

In the debasing slang of the period, that had 
even found its way into the virgin cloisters of 
the Crammer Institute, Miss Kate, as she after 
wards expressed it, instantly “ went for her.” 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


265 


First, with a shake of her head, she threw 
her long black hair over one shoulder, then, 
dropping one end of the counterpane from the 
other like a vestal tunic, she stepped before 
Carry with a purposely-exaggerated classic stride. 
“ And what if I have, miss ! What if I happen 
to know a gentleman when I see him ! What 
if I happen to know, that among a thousand 
such traditional, conventional, feeble editions of 
their grandfathers as Mr. Harry Robinson, you 
cannot find one original, independent, individu- 
alized gentleman like your Prince ! Go to bed, 
miss, and pray to Heaven that he may be 
your Prince indeed. Ask to have a contrite 
and grateful heart, and thank the Lord in par- 
ticular for having sent you such a friend as 
Kate Van Corlear.” Yet, after an imposing 
dramatic exit, she re-appeared the next moment 
as a straight white flash, kissed Carry between 
the brows, and was gone. 

The next day was a weary one to Jack Prince. 
He was convinced in his mind that Carry 
would not come ; yet to keep this consciousness 
from Mrs. Starbottle, to meet her simple hope- 
fulness with an equal degree of apparent faith, 
was a hard and difficult task. He would have 
tried to divert her mind by taking her on a 
iong drive; but she was fearful that Carry 
might come during her absence ; and her 


266 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

strength, he was obliged to admit, had failed 
greatly. As he looked into her large and awe- 
inspiring clear eyes, a something he tried to 
keep from his mind — to put off day by day 
from contemplation — kept asserting itself di- 
rectly to his inner consciousness. He began to 
doubt the expediency and wisdom of his man- 
agement. He recalled every incident of his 
interview with Carry, and half believed that its 
failure was due to himself. Yet Mrs. Starbottle 
was very patient and confident : her very con- 
fidence shook his faith in his own judgment. 
When her strength was equal to the exertion, 
she was propped up in her chair by the window, 
where she could see the school and the entrance 
to the hotel. In the intervals she would elabo- 
rate pleasant plans for the future, and would 
sketch a country home. She had taken a 
strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to the 
present location; but it was notable that the 
future, always thus outlined, was one of quiet 
and repose. She believed she would get well 
soon: in fact, she thought she was now much 
better than she had been ; but it might be long 
before she should be quite strong again. She 
would whisper on in this way until Jack would 
dash madly down into the bar-room, order 
liquors that he did not drink, light cigars that 
he did not smoke, talk with men that he did not 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


267 


listen to, and behave generally as our stronger 
sex is apt to do in periods of delicate trials and 
perplexity. 

The day closed with a clouded sky and a 
bitter, searching wind. With the night fell a 
few wandering flakes of snow. She was still 
content and hopeful ; and, as Jack wheeled her 
from the window to the fire, she explained to 
him, how, that, as the school-term was drawing 
near its close, Carry was probably kept closely 
at her lessons during the day, and could only 
leave the school at night. So she sat up the 
greater part of the evening, and combed her 
silken hair, and, as far as her strength would 
allow, made an undress toilet to receive her 
guest. “ We must not frighten the child, Jack,” 
she said apologetically, and with something of 
her old coquetry. 

It was with a feeling of relief, that, at ten 
o’clock, Jack received a message from the land- 
lord, saying that the doctor would like to see 
him for a moment down stairs. As Jack en- 
tered the grim, dimly-lighted parlor, he observed 
the hooded figure of a woman near the fire. He 
was about to withdraw again, when a voice that 
he remembered very pleasantly said, — 

“ Oh, it’s all right ! I’m the doctor.” 

The hood was thrown back ; and Prince saw 
the shining black hair, and black, audacious 
eyes, of Kate Van Corlear. 


268 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

“ Don’t ask any questions. I’m the doctor 
and there’s my prescription,” and she pointed to 
the half-frightened, half-sobbing Carry in the 
corner — “ to be taken at once.” 

“ Then Mrs. Tretherick has given her per- 
mission ? ” 

“ Not much, if I know the sentiments of that 
lady,” replied Kate saucily. 

“Then how did you get away?” asked 
Prince gravely. 

“By the window.” 

When Mr. Prince had left Carry in the arms 
of her stepmother, he returned to the parlor. 

“Well?” demanded Kate. 

“She will stay — you will, I hope, also — to- 
night.” 

“As I shall not be eighteen, and my own 
mistress on the 20th, and as I haven’t a sick 
stepmother, I won’t.” 

“ Then you will give me the pleasure of see- 
ing you safely through the window again ? ” 

When Mr. Prince returned an hour later, he 
found Carry sitting on a low stool at Mrs. Star- 
bottle’s feet. Her head was in her stepmother’s 
lap ; and she had sobbed herself to sleep. Mrs. 
Starbottle put her finger to her lip. “I told 
you she would come. God bless you, Jack I 
and good-night.” 

The next morning Mrs. Tretherick, indig 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


269 


nant, the Rev. Asa Crammer, principal, injured, 
and Mr. Joel Robinson, sen., complacently re- 
spectable, called upon Mr. Prince. There was 
a stormy meeting, ending in a demand for 
Carry. “We certainly cannot admit of this 
interference,” said Mrs. Tretherick, a fashiona- 
bly dressed, indistinctive looking woman. “ It is 
several days before the expiration of our agree- 
ment ; and we do not feel, under the circum- 
stances, justified in releasing Mrs. Starbottle 
from its conditions.” “ Until the expiration of 
the school-term, we must consider Miss Treth- 
erick as complying entirely with its rules and 
discipline,” imposed Dr. Crammer. “ The 
whole proceeding is calculated to injure the 
prospects, and compromise the position, of Miss 
Tretherick in society,” suggested Mr. Robin- 
son. 

In vain Mr. Prince urged the failing condi- 
tion of Mrs. Starbottle, her absolute freedom 
from complicity with Carry’s flight, the pardon- 
able and natural instincts of the girl, and his 
own assurance that they were willing to abide 
by her decision. And then with a rising color 
in his cheek, a dangerous look in his eye, but a 
singular calmness in his speech, he added, — 

“One word more. It becomes my duty to 
inform you of a circumstance which would cer- 
tainly justify me, as an executor of the late 
\\ 


270 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 


Mr. Tretherick, in fully resisting your demands. 
A few months after Mr. Tretherick’s death* 
through the agency of a Chinaman in his em« 
ployment, it was discovered that he had made a 
will, which was subsequently found among his 
papers The insignificant value of his bequest 
— mostly land, then quite valueless — prevent- 
ed his executors from carrying out his wishes, 
or from even proving the will, or making it 
otherwise publicly known, until within the last 
two or three years, when the property had 
enormously increased in value. The provisions 
of that bequest are simple, but unmistakable. 
The property is divided between Carry and her 
stepmother, with the explicit condition that 
Mrs. Starbottle shall become her legal guardian, 
provide for her education, and in all details 
stand to her in loco parentis” 

“ What is the value of this bequest ? ” asked 
Mr. Robinson. “ I cannot tell exactly, but not 
far from half a million, I should say,” returned 
Prince. “ Certainly, with this knowledge, as a 
friend of Miss Tretherick, I must say that her 
conduct is as judicious as it is honorable to 
her,” responded Mr. Robinson. “I shall not 
presume to question the wishes, or throw any 
obstacles in the way of carrying out the inten- 
tions, of my dead husband,” added Mrs. Treth 
erick ; and the interview was closed. 


AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETO'WN. 271 

When its result was made known to Mrs. 
Starbottle, she raised Jack’s hand to her fever- 
ish lips. “ It cannot add to my happiness now, 
Jack; but tell me, why did you keep it from 
her ? ” Jack smiled, but did not reply. 

Within the next week the necessary legal 
formalities were concluded; and Carry was 
restored to her stepmother. At Mrs. Star- 
bottle’s request, a small house in the outskirts 
of the town was procured; and thither they 
removed to wait the spring, and Mrs. Starbottle’s 
convalescence. Both came tardily that year. 

Yet she was happy and patient. She was fond 
of watching the budding of the trees beyond 
her window, — a novel sight to her Californian 
experience, — and of asking Carry their names 
and seasons. Even at this time she projected 
for that summer, which seemed to her so mys- 
teriously withheld, long walks with Carry 
through the leafy woods, whose gray, misty 
ranks she could see along the hilltop. She 
even thought she could write poetry about 
them, and recalled the fact as evidence of her 
gaining strength; and there is, I believe, still 
treasured by one of the members of this little 
household a little carol so joyous, so simple, and 
so innocent, that it might have been an echo 
of the robin that called to her from the window, 
ns perhaps it was. 


272 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 

And then, without warning, there dropped 
from Heaven a day so tender, so mystically soft, 
so dreamily beautiful, so throbbing, and alive 
with the fluttering of invisible wings, so replete 
and bounteously overflowing with an awaken- 
ing and joyous resurrection not taught by man 
or limited by creed, that they thought it fit 
to bring her out, and lay her in that glorious 
sunshine that sprinkled like the droppings of a 
bridal torch the happy lintels and doers. And 
there she lay beatified and calm. 

Wearied by watching, Carry had fallen 
asleep by her side ; and Mrs. Starbottle’s thin 
fingers lay like a benediction on her head. Pres- 
ently she called Jack to her side. 

“ Who was that,” she whispered, “ who just 
came in ? ” 

“Miss Van Corlear,” said Jack, answering 
the look in her great hollow eyes. 

“Jack,” she said, after a moment’s silence, 
“sit by me a moment, dear Jack: I’ve some- 
thing I must say. If I ever seemed hard, or 
cold, or coquettish to you in the old days, it was 
because I loved you, Jack, too well to mar your 
future by linking it with my own. I always 
loved you, dear Jack, even when I seemed 
least worthy of you. That is gone now. But I 
had a dream lately, Jack, a foolish woman’s 
dream, — that you might find what I lacked in 


AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 


273 


Aer,” and she glanced lovingly at the sleeping 
girl at her side ; “ that you might love her as 
you have loved me. But even that is not to be. 
Jack, is it?” and she glanced wistfully in his 
face. Jack pressed her hand, but did not speak. 
After a few moments’ silence, she again said, 
“ Perhaps you are right in your choice. She is 
a good-hearted girl, Jack — but a little bold.” 

Amd with this last flicker of foolish, weak 
humanity in her struggling spirit, she spoke no 
more. When they came to her a moment later, 
a tiny bird that had lit upon her breast flew 
away ; and the hand that they lifted from Car 
ry’s head fell lifeless at her side. 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


I HA YE seen her at last. She is a hundred 
and seven years old, and remembers George 
Washington quite distinctly. It is somewhat 
confusing, however, that she also remembers a 
contemporaneous Josiah W. Perkins of Bask- 
ing Ridge, N.J., and, I think, has the impres- 
sion that Perkins was the better man. Perkins, 
at the close of the last century, paid her some 
little attention. There are a few things that a 
really noble woman of a hundred and seven 
never forgets. 

It was Perkins, who said to her in 1795, in 
the streets of Philadelphia, “ Shall I show thee 
Gen. Washington?” Then she said careless- 
like (for you know, child, at that time it wasn’t 
what it is now to see Gen. Washington), she 
said, “ So do, Josiah, so do ! ” Then he pointed 
to a tall man who got out of a carriage, and 
went into a large house. He was larger than 
you be. He wore his own hair — not powdered ; 
had a flowered chintz vest, with yellow breeches 
and blue stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat 

274 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


275 


In summer he wore a white straw hat, and at 
his farm at Basking Ridge he always wore it< 
At this point, it became too evident that she 
was describing the clothes of the all-fascinating 
Perkins : so I gently but firmly led her back 
to Washington. Then it appeared that she did 
not remember exactly what he wore. To assist 
her, I sketched the general historic dress of 
that period. She said she thought he was 
dressed like that. Emboldened by my success, 
I added a hat of Charles II., and pointed shoes 
of the eleventh century. She indorsed these 
with such cheerful alacrity, that I dropped the 
subject. 

The house upon which I had stumbled, or, 
rather, to which my horse — a Jersey hack, 
accustomed to historic research — had brought 
me, was low and quaint. Like most old houses, 
it had the appearance of being encroached upon 
by the surrounding glebe, as if it were already 
half in the grave, with a sod or two, in the 
shape of moss thrown on it, like ashes on ashes, 
and dust on dust. A wooden house, instead of 
acquiring dignity with age, is apt to lose its 
youth and respectability together. A porch, 
with scant, sloping seats, from which even the 
winter’s snow must have slid uncomfortably, 
projected from a doorway that opened most un- 
justifiably into a small sitting-room. There was 


276 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


no vestibule, or locus poenitentice , for the embar- 
rassed or bashful visitor: he passed at once 
from the security of the public road into 
shameful privacy. And here, in the mellow 
autumnal sunlight, that, streaming through the 
maples and sumach on the opposite bank, flick- 
ered and danced upon the floor, she sat and 
discoursed of George Washington, and thought 
of Perkins. She was quite in keeping with the 
house and the season, albeit a little in advance 
of both ; her skin being of a faded russet, and 
her hands so like dead November leaves, that I 
fancied they even rustled when she moved 
them. 

For all that, she was quite bright and cheery ; 
her faculties still quite vigorous, although per- 
forming irregularly and spasmodically. It was 
somewhat discomposing, I confess, to observe, 
that at times her lower jaw would drop, leav- 
ing her speechless, until one of the family 
would notice it, and raise it smartly into place 
with a slight snap, — an operation always per- 
formed in such an habitual, perfunctory man- 
ner, generally in passing to and fro in their 
household duties, that it was very trying tc 
the spectator. It was still more embarrassing 
to observe that the dear old lady had evidently 
no knowledge of this, but believed she was still 
talking, and that, on resuming her actual vocal 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


277 


utterance, she was often abrupt and incoherent, 
beginning always in the middle of a sentence, 
and often in the middle of a word. “ Sometimes,” 
said her daughter, a giddy, thoughtless young 
thing of eighty-five, — “ sometimes just moving 
her head sort of unhitches her jaw ; and, if we 
don’t happen to see it, she’ll go on talking for 
hours without ever making a sound.” Although 
I was convinced, after this, that during my inter- 
view I had lost several important revelations 
regarding George Washington through these 
peculiar lapses, I could not help reflecting how 
beneficent were these provisions of the Creator, 

— how, if properly studied and applied, they 
might be fraught with happiness to mankind, 

— how a slight jostle or jar at a dinner-party 
might make the post-prandial eloquence of 
garrulous senility satisfactory to itself, yet harm- 
less to others, — how a more intimate knowledge 
of anatomy, introduced into the domestic circle, 
might make a home tolerable at least, if not 
happy, — how a long-suffering husband, under 
the pretence of a conjugal caress, might so 
unhook his wife’s condyloid process as to allow 
the flow of expostulation, criticism, or denun- 
ciation, to go on with gratification to her, and 
perfect immunity to himself. 

But this was not getting back to George 
Washington and the early struggles of the 


278 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


Republic. So I returned to the commander 
in-chief, but found, after one or two leading 
questions, that she was rather inclined to re- 
sent his re-appearance on the stage. Her rem- 
iniscences here were chiefly social and local, 
and more or less flavored with Perkins. We 
got back as far as the Revolutionary epoch, or, 
rather, her impressions of that epoch, when it 
was still fresh in the public mind. And here 
I came upon an incident, purely personal and 
local, but, withal, so novel, weird, and uncanny, 
that for a while I fear it quite displaced 
George Washington in my mind, and tinged the 
autumnal fields beyond with a red that was not 
of the sumach. I do not remember to have 
read of it in the books. I do not know that it 
is entirely authentic. It was attested to me by 
mother and daughter, as an uncontradicted tra- 
dition. 

In the little field beyond, where the plough still 
turns up musket-balls and cartridge-boxes, took 
place one of those irregular skirmishes between 
the militiamen and Knyphausen’s stragglers, 
that made the retreat historical. A Hessian 
soldier, wounded in both legs and utterly help- 
less, dragged himself to the cover of a hazel- 
copse, and lay there hidden for two days. On 
the third day., maddened by thirst, he managed 
to creep to the rail-fence of an adjoining farm 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


279 


house, but found himself unable to mount it or 
pass through. There was no one in the house 
but a little girl of six or seven years. He called 
to her, and in a faint voice asked for water. 
She returned to the house, as if to comply with 
bis request, but, mounting a chair, took from 
the chimney a heavily-loaded Queen Anne 
musket, and, going to the door, took deliberate 
aim at the helpless intruder, and fired. The 
man fell back dead, without a groan. She re- 
placed the musket, and, returning to the fence, 
covered the body with boughs and leaves, until 
it was hidden. Two or three days after, she 
related the occurrence in a careless, casual way, 
and leading the way to the fence, with a piece 
of bread and butter in her guileless little fin- 
gers, pointed out the result of her simple, unso- 
phisticated effort. The Hessian was decently 
buried, but I could not find out what became 
of the little girl. Nobody seemed to remember. 
I trust, that, in after-years, she was happily 
married; that no Jersey Lovelace attempted 
to trifle with a heart whose impulses were so 
prompt, and whose purposes were so sincere. 
They did not seem to know if she had married 
or not. Yet it does not seem probable that 
such simplicity of conception, frankness of ex- 
pression, and deftness of execution, were lost 
to posterity, or that they failed, in their time 


280 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


and season, to give flavor to the domestic felicity 
of the period. Beyond this, the story perhaps 
has little value, except as an offset to the usual 
anecdotes of Hessian atrocity. 

They had their financial panics even in Jen 
sey, in the old days. She remembered when 
Dr. White married your cousin Mary — or was 
it Susan ? — yes, it was Susan. She remembers 
that your Uncle Harry brought in an armful 
of bank-notes, — paper money, you know, — and 
threw them in the corner, saying they were no 
good to anybody. She remembered playing 
with them, and giving them to your Aunt 
Anna — no, child, it was your own mother, 
bless your heart ! Some of them was marked 
as high as a hundred dollars. Everybody kept 
gold and silver in a stocking, or in a “ chaney ” 
vase, like that. You never used money to buy 
any thing. When Josiah went to Springfield 
to buy any thing, he took a cartload of things 
with him to exchange. That yaller picture- 
frame was paid for in greenings. But then 
people knew jest what they had. They didn’t 
fritter their substance away in unchristian 
trifles, like your father, Eliza Jane, who doesn’t 
know that there is a God who will smite him 
hip and thigh ; for vengeance is mine, and those 
that believe in me. But here, singularly enough, 
the inferior maxillaries gave out, and her jaw 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


281 


dropped. (I noticed that her giddy daughter 
of eighty-five was sitting near her; but I do 
not pretend to connect this fact with the 
arrested flow of personal disclosure.) How- 
beit, when she recovered her speech again, 
it appeared that she was complaining of the 
weather. 

The seasons had changed very much since 
your father went to sea. The winters used to 
be terrible in those days. When she went over 
to Springfield, in June, she saw the snow still 
on Watson’s Ridge. There were whole days 
when you couldn’t git over to William Henry’s, 
their next neighbor, a quarter of a mile away. 
It was that drefful winter that the Spanish 
sailor was found. You don’t remember the 
Spanish sailor, Eliza Jane — it was before your 
time. There was a little personal skirmishing 
here, which I feared, at first, might end in a 
suspension of maxillary functions, and the loss 
of the story ; but here it is. Ah, me ! it is a 
pure white winter idyl : how shall I sing it this 
bright, gay autumnal day ? 

It was a terrible night, that winter’s night, 
when she and the century were young together. 
The sun was lost at three o’clock : the snowy 
night came down like a white sheet, that flapped 
around the house, beat at the windows with 
its edges, and at last wrapped it in a close 


282 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


embrace. In the middle of the right, they 
thought they heard above the wind a voice 
crying, “ Christus, Christus ! ” in a foreign 
tongue. They opened the door, — no easy task 
in the north wind that pressed its strong 
shoulders against it, — but nothing was to be 
seen but the drifting snow. The next morning 
dawned on fences hidden, and a landscape 
changed and obliterated with drift. During 
the day, they again heard the cry of “ Chris- 
tus ! ” this time faint and hidden, like a child’s 
voice. They searched in vain : the drifted snow 
hid its secret. On the third day they broke a 
path to the fence, and then they heard the cry 
distinctly. Digging down, they found the body 
of a man, — a Spanish' sailor, dark and bearded, 
with ear-rings in his ears. As they stood gaz- 
ing down at his cold and pulseless figure, the 
cry of “ Christus ! ” again rose upon the wintry 
air ; and they turned and fled in superstitious 
terror to the house. And then one of the chil- 
dren, bolder than the rest, knelt down, and 
opened the dead man’s rough pea-jacket, and 
found — what think you? — a little blue-and- 
green parrot, nestling against his breast. It 
was the bird that had echoed mechanically the 
last despairing cry of the life that was given to 
save it. It was the bird, that ever after, amid 
outlandish oaths and wilder sailor-songs, that I 


A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 


283 


fear often shocked the pure ears of its gentle 
mistress, and brought scandal into the Jerseys, 
still retained that one weird and mournful cry. 

The sun meanwhile was sinking behind the 
steadfast range beyond, and I could not help 
feeling that I must depart with my wants un- 
satisfied. I had brought away no historic frag- 
ment : I absolutely knew little or nothing new 
regarding George Washington. I had been 
addressed variously by the names of different 
members of the family who were dead and for- 
gotten; I had stood for an hour in tl*e past: 
yet I had not added to my historical knowledge, 
nor the practical benefit of your readers. I 
spoke once more of Washington, and she re- 
plied with a reminiscence of Perkins. 

Stand forth, O Josiahr W. Perkins of Basking 
Ridge, N.J. Thou -vfast of little account in 
thy life, I warrant; thou didst not even feel 
the greatness of thy day and time ; thou didst 
criticise thy superiors ; thou wast small and 
narrow in thy ways ; thy very name and grave 
are unknown and uncared for : but thou wast 
ance kind to a woman who survived thee, and, 
10 ! thy name is again spoken of men, and for a 
moment lifted up above thy betters. 




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